


Somewhere that's green

by speakslow



Series: True colors [3]
Category: IT (1990), IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Bright as yellow 'verse, Continuation of HS and College AU, Domestic Fluff, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, It's just a bunch of cute shit honestly, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, POV Richie Tozier, Sonia Kaspbrak existing, Surrogate baby story, Thirties, i'm really terrible at measuring the passage of time so any age related continuity errors are my bad, mentions of child abuse, mentions of panic, richie is a chubby bunny and feelin old y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-06-30 10:52:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15750210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakslow/pseuds/speakslow
Summary: A matchbox of our ownA fence of real chain linkA grill out on the patioDisposal in the sinkA washer and a dryer and an ironing machineIn a tract house that we shareSomewhere that's green.





	1. Thanksgiving, part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie are about to host Thanksgiving for the first time and Eddie is beyond stressed, but Sadie has some good news that might turn everything around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quick note: based on the timeline of the first 2 stories, this has to be set in like... 2031? but ya girl ain't writing a futuristic fic because that's not my bag, baby.

 

~*+*~

 

Sunlight filtered into the expansive black and white kitchen, casting lacy shadows across the tile. The toasty warmth of the double oven permeated the space. It smelled like a wet dream about root vegetables. The dining room table and the breakfast nook were in mint condition; done up with fancy place-settings in golds and browns. Gentle music hummed out of the speaker in the living room: a relaxation playlist affectionately titled   _Soften the Spaghetti._   The only other sound was the crunch of an onion being sliced.

Two o’clock on a weekday afternoon in their beautiful house, and they were both home. It should’ve been a serene moment in their lives. It was not. The tension in the air was thicker than the smell of sweet potato pie, and Eddie had a knife in his hands. He was using it to assemble a salad, but Richie had a sixth sense when it came to his husband's mood.

“Eddie, baby, do you wanna kill me? Be honest. I can take it.”

But he couldn’t take it. He was lying through his teeth.

If Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier was given the pleasure of penning the inscription on his own tombstone,   _He leapt before he looked most of the time, but golly gee, he sure was funny_ ,  would’ve been his number one choice for a snappy byline. Truthful, and to the point.

“In case you're actively plotting,” he continued, carefully eyeing the side of Eddie’s face as he leaned against the pantry, “I always saw myself going out in a freak accident. A  _Home Alone_  -esque tumble down the basement stairs, maybe."

His mouth joked by default, rambling senselessly when he knew perfectly well that none of his words were helping the situation. If he were to stop talking and  _act,_ Richie would've made his mouth useful. He would've pulled Eddie away from the cutting board, led him to the couch and sucked bruises into his hips until his mood turned around, but the twitching vein in Eddie’s neck and his mannequin-stiff posture forbade it.

They didn't have any time to fuck around anyway, so Richie straightened his glasses and kept going. "Or like, chugging a cup of what I thought was Gatorade only for it to turn out to be Liquid Plummer. You should take a memo when you’re done; these are good ideas.”

Nothing. Not even a smirk.

Richie imagined that if he died at that exact second, the marker that sat on his eternal resting place would probably boast:  _He died doing what came natural to him: stressing his husband the fuck out._

“Richie.” Eddie sighed and paused his prep. He shook his sleeve back and rubbed his bare wrist over one teary eye. “I only mildly wanna kill you,” he said softly with a sniffle, “kinda standard. Not enough to need suggestions.” He continued cutting the onion despite the havoc it wreaked on his eyes. “You know what _wouldn’t_   kill you? To stop fucking around and help me. I have no idea what I’m doing either, and I'm managing to figure it out.”

“Yeah. I guess, Eds.” He lifted off the cabinet and glided a wide berth around Eddie, afraid to continue speaking, because he knew it wouldn’t go over well. “It's just... it seems like you know what to do? Or at least you have a plan. I set the tables and put out the olives and cheese and stuff. Everything's in the oven. What's left?”

The only answers he received were a deeper sigh and resumed chopping. Louder chopping.

Richie would’ve sworn it on a ten-foot stack of bibles: he never, ever  _tried_   to cause Eddie stress. On the contrary, he would have preferred that they shared nothing but perfect, blissful good-times forevermore. But he also had this nasty habit of opening his mouth before he thought things through.

They’d gone almost nine months into their stint as homeowners without finding an opportunity to throw themselves a house-warming party. The closing papers were signed two days before Richie’s thirty-first birthday. After a couple renovations in the spring, a busy summer, and an even more hectic fall, the perfect time for a gathering just never came.

Three weeks before Thanksgiving, Maggie Tozier called her son to tell him that cooking a big meal would be too much for her to handle that year. The early onset of arthritis in her hands was the only thing stopping her; she loved to play host. Richie heard the helplessness in her voice and jumped at the chance to take the bullet, though he seemed to forget in that moment that any bullets he took were taken for their team. He foolishly figured he didn’t need to run it by his husband first, and that it’d all be smooth sailing. A dinner party; some wine-n-chucks. An excuse to show off their house. Easy-peasy.

_Wrong-o, buddy. Wrong-o. More ridiculous than a cheetah going vegan._

In retrospect, Richie probably should have known that the entire thing was a disaster waiting to happen. Neither of them were that into cooking—they grilled a lot, even in the winter. Their dining room table wasn’t big enough to seat more than six people, and there would be eleven guests total. All three of their parents. Two of Eddie’s aunts and his younger cousin. Sadie and her new mystery boyfriend. Bringing up the rear were America’s Sweethearts™ Benverly (who collectively had no familial options of their own), along with their tiny, adorable spawn, Micah.

An afternoon and evening with family and friends. They'd do it up buffet style; people would be seated wherever was clever, and any food critics in the crowd would kindly be instructed to go fuck themselves. Richie tried his best to remain optimistic, and he did, until the Sunday before the holiday when the downward spiral began.

Cleaning. Grocery shopping. Recipe settling. Guest bedroom sheet to curtain coordination. 

Eddie, impossibly stressed. Eddie with dark circles under his eyes. Eddie needing to blast off on the rescue inhaler they kept in case of emergency for the first time in half a decade. Eddie, a broken record playing the same verse of _My mother is going to flip her lid over—_ a laundry list of bullshit that no reasonable person cared about; over and over. 

The sheer prospect of Sonia Kaspbrak—armed with overnight bags and a critical eye— entering their safe-zone was daunting. No matter how many years passed, she maintained an almost imperceptible hold over Eddie. As her son-in-law, Richie’d figured out that they could keep her in check by simply withholding reactions to her histrionics. He had a sneaking suspicion that deep down, Eddie knew that was the secret, it was just harder for him to deny her.

More than once, Richie tried to offer Eddie an out. He said they could take it back, that Maggie would understand if they changed their minds, but through it all, Eddie maintained that he wanted to do it.  _"This is what grown-ups do,"_   he'd said,  _"this is the reason people buy houses in the first place."_  But Richie wasn't buying that song and dance one bit. He thought Eddie must've been trying (and failing) to convince himself. 

Thanksgiving morning, Richie’d gotten up bright and early to set the day off right. He made coffee in the French press and cooked up breakfast burritos—one of the only things he knew how to make to perfection indoors. When a pale and bleary-eyed Eddie emerged from their bedroom in a long-sleeved henley of Richie's and sweat shorts, Richie was rewarded with a hand in his hair and a soft kiss on the neck.

They trudged through the preparations and pitfalls. All morning and into the afternoon, Richie’d helped to his maximum potential, but he mostly just watched Eddie barrel through task after task with concerned eyes and a leaden heart. 

Fourteen years together—three of them married—and in all that time, very little had changed. If Eddie was stressed out, without fail, Richie followed suit, even if he’d been the cause.  _Especially_ when he’d been the cause.

It felt like osmosis: Eddie’s tension floated out into the atmosphere and it invaded Richie's body until he took involuntary ownership of it. The options for dealing with the predicament varied. There was cracking a joke to lighten the mood. Cutting off the flow of anxiety at the source by wrapping his arms around Eddie from behind and holding on for dear life. Changing the vibe by blasting some opposite-mood music out of the speakers. Solid plans all, but none of them were working.

Richie had one last resort. An ultimate solution for tending to stress. A selfish one. Simply stated, he would have given his left nut for a cigarette. Just one.

The jittery, antsy craving started as a twinge in his lower back and spread upwards, making his skin feel like it was stretched over his frame too tight. All he had to do was find an excuse to walk four blocks down to the bodega that never closed—a liter of half and half, maybe, that would work. He’d smoke secretly behind the garage, relief would rush through his system and he’d instantly be able to support Eddie better.

He was about to open his mouth to announce that he was leaving the house, when he heard Eddie suck his teeth from the other side of the kitchen.

“Damn it, Richie,” he whined, not angry. Exhausted. The knife clattered onto the cutting board and Eddie spun around. “There are stuffing cubes all over the floor.” He grabbed the broom from the corner and put his back into sweeping up. “This is what you could be doing. I don’t want the place to look disgusting when people start showing up.”

_Kid, if you start talking about E. coli, I’m gonna run away from home._

Richie hadn’t really been paying cleanliness any mind when he assembled the stuffing. Egg shells and onion skins were left on the end of the counter; stuffing crumbs crunched under their feet; oil splatter and dried sage coated the normally pristine stove top. From his perspective it was just typical holiday mess that could wait until after the meal was served, but he knew Eddie wasn’t having any of that.

"Eds, I kinda need you to bring it down a notch. Or thirty." With a resigned sigh, Richie laid everything out on the table to keep himself from blowing the cold-turkey quit he'd maintained for five years. “Look, I'm one more ‘damn it, Richie’ away from doing something really stupid,” he admitted. He left the rest unspoken, but the request was clear in the desperation of his tone. _“We’re in this together, baby. I know you’re frustrated but don’t take it out on me. We both know I’m fragile as shit.”_

After hearing  _‘something really stupid,’_   Eddie’s head snapped up with narrowed eyes, but when he saw Richie’s pleading face, he caught himself. He blinked a couple times and focused down on the floor. “Sorry. I’m just really—” The corners of his mouth tugged up a tad. He curled his hand over the top end of the broom and stood to his full height, cocking his hip, elongating his left thigh in that way that usually made Richie want to swallow his own tongue. Eddie was always beautiful, but the past couple weeks had taken a toll on him, and Richie just wanted to tuck him into bed. "Something stupid,” he said, repeating Richie's words with a playful, questioning pout. “You’re either gonna fake sick so you can run away—even though  _you_   volunteered us to do this, OR you’re gonna go buy a pack of cigarettes.”

The change in Eddie’s demeanor was instant relief. Richie stepped closer, smiling and taking the broom off his hands. “What if I told you that I’m currently considering both of those options?”

“  _Richie. ”_

The doorbell rang, and the electronic sound distorted, echoing over itself. Whichever guest had arrived must’ve bopped the buzzer a good five times.

Furrowing his brow, Richie leaned the broom against the counter. “Who the fuck would show up this early?”

“Fuck.” With a squeak, Eddie ran towards the bedroom, probably to find a pair of pants that better concealed his junk. “I hope that’s not my mother.”

Richie stomped out of the kitchen, through the dining room and into the foyer, yelling, “Your mom can suck my fat one,” over his shoulder as he opened the front door.

“Nasty. Happy Thanksgiving to you, too.” His sister stood on the stoop with an overnight bag slung over her shoulder and a white pastry box in her hand. She shoved the box into Richie’s chest. “And  _you_   want to be a father.”

Richie backed up to let her in. “I’d be the most fun dad in the whole world and you know it," he said as he shut the front door.

“Fun and good are very different things,” Sadie said. She dropped her bag next to the living room couch on her way to the kitchen.

"What’s in the box?” Richie asked as he trailed behind her. He gave it a little shake.

“Gwyneth Paltrow’s head.”

“Kinky,” he deadpanned. “What’s it really, cannoli?”

“Mini chocolate cheesecakes.”

“Noice.”

“Oh, thank God." Eddie’d thrown on a pair of joggers. "It’s you, and not--” He shook his head and stalked forward to hug Sadie like he hadn’t seen her in nine years.

"Oof, Jesus. I love you, too." Sadie scrunched up one eye at her brother, mouthing,  _He okay?_

Richie shook his head and put on an incredulous face. A face he knew Sadie could read: _Does he look alright, genius?_    He crossed the kitchen floor and set the pastry box down on the counter before parking just behind his husband.

 “Sadie, I got us a malbec—” Eddie backed away from her, tipping his head side to side until his tense neck muscles cracked. He looked so tired, Richie wanted to call his parents and make them turn the car around; ring up Mrs. Sonia K and tell her in no uncertain terms to take a long walk off a short plank. Thanksgiving: canceled. Game called on account of Eddie’s comfort. “—I know it’s only two-thirty in the afternoon, but please,  _please_ ,  tell me it’s okay to open it now.”

Sadie smoothed the skirt of her flower-print dress, stalling, Richie could tell. “I can’t drink tonight, Eddie.” She gave him a sympathetic pout and fiddled with her pendant necklace. “Though a malbec sounds really enticing. Jelly.”

“Oh. Fuck. Really?” He parked his ass against Richie’s front, leaning his weight back like the news had pushed all the strength out of his body. His voice matched his posture: defeated. “If I’m the only one drinking it, my mother is gonna tell me I’m turning into a wino like my Aunt Kathy.”

“Untrue, Eds,” Richie cooed, sliding his hands up and down Eddie’s upper arms. The touch made his shoulders drop and relax. “You won’t be the biggest wino at the table by a long shot, and Sonia is always fake polite to Mags. She won’t even notice.”

Ignoring her brother, Sadie leaned her butt against the cabinets and crossed her arms over her chest. “There’s a reason I can’t drink tonight. I won’t be able to drink for a while.”

“Does your sobriety involve a certain number of steps?” Richie grinned, impressed with himself. “Because let’s cut to the chase before you try to make amends: I don’t forgive you.”

“No, you fucking idiot,” Sadie said, inciting a braying laugh from Richie. She rolled her eyes before softening and looking at Eddie. “I’m sober because I thought about what you guys asked me, and I decided that I’m in. My doctor told me to detox: no alcohol, only prescribed meds, plus I have to eat clean and light for a few weeks.”

Richie’s mouth dropped open. “No fucking  _way_ ,”  he whispered. 

A month before, on their third wedding anniversary, they’d done some late-night joking with their friends about the possibility of Bev being their surrogate. That led to a trip down memory lane, with a hysterically giggling Eddie going full-disclosure on an uncharacteristically quiet and blushing Richie. An embarrassing retelling of the Jello-shot-induced baby fantasy he'd confessed when they were in high school.

_Richie looked into his eyes, dead serious. “Someday, you’n’me are gonna both jerk-off into a cup.”_

_Eddie made a disgusted face and opened his mouth to complain._

_“Nonono staywithme lemmefinish. Then we’ll take our jizz, okay? ‘N mix it allup and put in Bev’s! Uterus! We’ll have the MOST. PERFECT. BABY.” He hiccuped. “EVER. It'll have your eyes’n’face’n lil cute body, Bev’s hair and my ‘mazing pers-nality. Whad’ya think?”_

_“I think Greta made those Jello shots out of Robitussin. You’re high as shit right now.” Eddie paused, thinking. “But don’t call our baby ‘it.’ And if we’re custom building them from our parts, they need to have_ your   _eyes. And cheek bones and hair and lips and freckles, too.”_

_Richie smiled wide, bringing his face close to Eddie’s. “You think I’m cuuue-ooot,” he sang, “y’wanna have my baaay-beeees.”_

_“Ugh, forget I said anything.”_

_“Can’t.” He tapped his forehead. “Burned up here forever, now.”_

_“Wait Wait WAIT, Rich, YOU ACTUALLY SAID THESE WORDS?”_ Bev’d howled and thrown herself against Ben’s shoulder.  _“Baby, I can’t. I cannot believe I’m just now hearing this shit.”_

He didn’t know how the entire conversation started, but Richie knew how it ended: with Beverly suggesting that they could have an actual Kaspbrak-Tozier baby by using Sadie’s eggs and Eddie’s sperm.  _“Lots of people do in-vitro,”_  she’d said,  _“especially now,”_ and then she’d offered her uterus as an oven for their bun–only if Sadie was game, of course. It’d all been silly, fleeting, maybe-someday talk, but Eddie’s face had lit up with a hopeful longing.

The possibility of having their own baby—for real—and now it was actually going to happen.

Richie placed his hands on both of Eddie’s shoulder knobs, gently shaking him forward and back. “Baby. Did you hear that shit?”

Eddie wiggled himself free from Richie’s grip and turned around. A huge smile crinkled up his eyes and set his tired face alight. The first real smile Richie’d seen in three days, and he wished he could’ve bottled it, because it faltered. “That’s amazing, but are you totally sure, Sadie? It’s so much to ask—”

“I know,” Sadie cut him off, smirking. “It’s a shit-ton to ask, but you jerks asked anyway, and I’m saying yes. You can have some of my eggs”

“Oh my  _God_ I want to make a chicken joke so bad, but I’m too jazzed.” Richie grabbed his sister by the wrist and pulled her forward into a hug, sandwiching Eddie between them. "Thanks, Sades." 

"Yes, thank you so much." Eddie’s arms circled tight around his husband. “But, Bev.” His voice came out soft and muffled against Richie’s chest. “We have to see if she still—” 

“She still,” Sadie said simply as she pulled back from the embrace. “I have to coordinate everything I do with her, so she already knows.”

Burying his face into Eddie’s neck, Richie sighed. “See baby, your mom is going to be totally cool today. All that  _‘Woe is me; I’ll never have grandchildren’_  shit she started in on when we got married is kaput. I can’t wait to shut her up.” 

“You want to tell everyone already?” Eddie pushed off of Richie’s chest. He ran a fidgety hand over his forehead and through his messy bed-hair. “We should wait ‘til it’s a done deal. I’ve read a lot about in-vitro and sometimes it just doesn’t happen.” 

“Hey, my eggs are top notch,” Sadie said, mock offended. 

“Super Jumbo Grade A Fancy Eggs,” Richie sang, before crouching down to hide behind Eddie to avoid her shove.

Sadie relented and clasped her hands in front of herself. She chewed on her lower lip. “I have something else to tell you guys, and I don’t know how you’ll take it.”

Richie quit his hiding and stood up. “Then it’s probably a good thing that you led with _‘ I’m giving you the gift of human life.’_ ”

“We can take it,” Eddie said. His eyes flicked between the siblings. "Just say it."

“My new boyfriend? The one coming today, he—” She twisted her fingers together. “You both know him.”

“Who is it?” Eddie asked, at the same time Richie said, “It’s Guy Fieri.”

Chuckling, Sadie shook her head. “Uh, it’s Bill.”

Eddie’s jaw went slack. “Bill Denbrough?”

“Bill Nye the Science Guy,” Richie corrected him.

“  _Fuck_ , ” Sadie said explosively, “would you stop?!” but then she huffed a breath and her voice lost its shrillness. “I guess if you’re fucking around, you’re not mad?"

“Mad? What the fuck do I care?”  Richie shrugged and glanced at Eddie. “Do you?”

“No.” Eddie grinned wolfishly at Sadie, seemingly forgetting all his stress. “Your undergrad fantasies are coming true.”

“Oh, ew.” Richie covered his ears. “I don’t wanna know anything about your fantasies, Sades.”

“It’s nothing gross,” Sadie said. “I’ve just had a crush on him since I was nineteen and it took him eight years to decide whether or not he liked me, that’s all.”

“Bill can be pretty oblivious,” Eddie said contemplatively. He squinted up at the clock above the stove and a panicked look overtook his face so quickly, Richie almost laughed. “Shit! We have a half an hour ‘til—”

Sadie placed her hands on either side of Eddie’s face and kissed his forehead, silencing him. " _Shhh,_ listen. You two should go shower and get dressed." She stepped back and reached under the sink cabinet to grab a plastic grocery bag from their stash. "I can finish cleaning up in here.” While picking trash off the counter and stuffing it into the bag, she asked, “Everything in the oven is just kind of on autopilot, right?”

“Uh, yeah. When the first timer goes off, take out the big casserole on the bottom.” Eddie opened up the fridge and handed her a can of biscuits. “Then can you put these on a tray and shove them in? And finish the salad? I chopped an onion, but—”

“On it. Go, seriously. Richie needs to wash his hair, like two days ago.”

“Rude, but valid. I’ve been off all week”

They both started to walk towards their bedroom but stopped when Sadie said, “Oh, and guys? The doctor said that if everything goes according to schedule that the baby would be due in mid to late October next year.”

“No shit?" Richie bumped Eddie's hip with his own. "Halloween baby!”

"Anniversary baby," Eddie said softly with a smile.

The anniversary of their first kiss. The reason they'd chosen to get married on Halloween.

"Fifteen-year anniversary baby," Richie purred. He pulled Eddie closer and pressed their mouths together as he slid his hands around Eddie's waist and up along his spine to cup behind his neck. They melted together and kissed hungrily, like Sadie wasn't there. The tension living in Eddie's upper back and shoulders released, and he went rubbery as a noodle in Richie's arms. Richie took his lips away and planted one smooch on the tip of Eddie's nose. "If you think I'm not gonna tell everyone today, and keep on screaming it from the rooftops for the next four months, you've obviously been secretly doing a lot of drugs."

Still putty in Richie's hands, Eddie's half-lidded eyes searched all over his husband's face. His expression shifted; flushed cheeks pinching only slightly. "Sonia will find a way to ruin it."

"I'll ruin her," Richie said easily with a shrug. He grinned and shook Eddie back and forth in rhythm as he sang under his breath,  _" This is our house. This is our rules. "_

Sadie groaned, alerting them to her presence. "Are you fucking quoting Miley Cyrus? GO TAKE A SHOWER. People are going to get here in like twenty minutes." 

"Fuck." Eddie tore out of Richie's arms and took off running towards the bathroom.

"Thanks, Sadie." Richie walked backwards the same direction Eddie went. "Sorry for everything I ever said and did to you from 2009 to 2017."

"I don't forgive you," she called after him, echoing his own sentiments from earlier, but Richie smiled, because he knew that his sister was as big of a liar as he was.

 

~*+*~

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya, thank you for reading. @speakslowtellmelove on tumblr - say hi if ya wanna.
> 
> I missed this 'verse smmmmmmm


	2. Thanksgiving, part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Relatives and friends arrive. Went has an unexpected (and unspoken) request. For once, Richie carefully considers things before opening his mouth.

 

~*+*~ 

 

Eddie looked as perfect as a man-made diamond. Dressed up in tailored burgundy pants and a printed navy button-down, he stood in front of the full-length mirror finger-combing his chestnut hair. At some point (Richie didn’t remember exactly when) he’d taken to a style with lengths on the top and cropped sides. A young cut, made more youthful by the natural copper and blond highlights that masked his modest collection of grays. He fluffed it at the crown of his head and spoke to Richie without turning around.

“This outfit is basically half what my mother would insist I wear, and half what Tan would congratulate me for wearing.” Laughing at his own admission, Eddie snapped at his suspenders. His mood had improved substantially, and Richie wasn’t sure if it was from Sadie’s arrival, the good news she’d brought with her, or just a result of the enthusiastic wrap-around handy Richie’d given him in the shower.

“You look fabuloush shweetheart." Richie’s eyes tracked up the back of his husband’s slim legs and over his ass. "A vishion in cranberry shpice.”

“You think?” He gracefully spun away from the mirror on his bare toes, but fell to his heels when he appraised Richie, who dawdled on the end of the bed in nothing but a pair of black boxer briefs. “Are you planning to join me in the land of   _We Wear Clothes To Family Events,_ or what?“

With a sigh, Richie slapped himself on the thighs with both hands. “Yeah, I just don’t know what the fuck to wear.” In slow measures he pushed up off the bed and stepped closer to the mirror but didn’t look at himself. He didn’t want to. “If I didn’t think I’d get a lecture from both you and my mom, I’d wear a hoodie and sweatpants to dinner.” His face crumpled after he said it out loud and he ran a hand across the spare tire that lived on his once trim waist. It’d been steadily growing since he quit smoking and caused him varying levels of insecurity depending on the day.

“Baby,” Eddie hummed gently. His warm hand landed on the pucker of Richie’s stomach and his spread fingers slid upwards. They slowed over the inked skin on Richie’s ribcage; finger pads skidding over his own name—the cover-up job for Richie’s silly adolescent text tattoo. “I wish you’d feel good about yourself.” His smiling eyes left the tattoo and locked onto Richie’s. “You’re always beautiful to me.”

The truth, delivered softly. It got Richie all caught up staring at Eddie’s big brown orbs. They were bloodshot tired but sincere, and the fine lines that bordered them were more apparent when he smiled. Lines that had deepened in the past couple years, because he had taken to squinting at anything that was either too close or too far away. He stubbornly refused to accept that he needed glasses, and Richie teased him mercilessly because of it. Not to be outdone, Eddie roasted Richie over how prominent his gray hairs were becoming. They stood out; starkly nestled in the backdrop of his ebony curls. Growing old together and still taking shots, but never low blows. Nothing that would truly hurt.

Richie came back to Earth, because Eddie was still looking at him expectantly with a slightly furrowed brow. “Sorry, you tell me I’m pretty and I go on a mission to the moon.”

Eddie’s smile shifted into something softer. “Try to keep your feet on the ground.” He slipped his hands around Richie’s torso and hooked them behind his back. “It’s just you and me against a bunch of het couples and my shrew family for the next six hours.”

Richie countered the move, resting his arms on the tops of Eddie’s shoulders, so they looked like they were about to slow dance at an eighth-grade cotillion.  “Six hours? Jesus fuck. And some of them aren’t even leaving until tomorrow.”

“Maybe we can convince my mother to stay in her sister’s hotel room.”

“Good call. I’ll plant some seeds; tell her we got all the guest bed mattresses off a curb in Newark.”

“Wouldn’t work; she knows I’d be dead before I agreed to that.” Eddie sighed. “You need to get dressed. Wear whatever you—”

A familiar hoot came from the kitchen and stopped Eddie in his tracks.

“Fuck, the cavalry has arrived.” Richie took his hands off Eddie and leaned towards the mirror, dragging his fingers through his wet curls. They were on track to dry into a disaster if he didn’t hit the gas on damage control. “You go make appearances for us; I have to figure out—”

“Shirt with buttons; pants with a fly,” Eddie said with a resigned smirk. “Other than that, do whatever you want.” He meant every word of it, Richie could tell.

“Babe! You really love me!” He turned around, ducking his head and running his fingers through his chest hair; playing coy while delivering the bad news. “You know what you’ve done, though, right? This means I’m wearing a flame shirt and corduroy pants.”

Eddie stretched up to peck him on the lips. “And I’ll be very embarrassed, but that hasn’t ever stopped me from loving you.”

“An angel,” Richie whispered. He wrapped his arms around Eddie and squeezed, tightly but briefly. “Get your cute ass out there and host.” 

 

~*+*~ 

 

Richie saved the flame shirt for another day. He settled on brown corduroys and a loose orange Hawaiian with dark blue hibiscus flowers. The clothes not only met Eddie’s specifications, they were also autumn colors; win-win. When he emerged from the bedroom, he was accosted by a high-pitched screech.

“Itchie!”

Micah’s little rubber sneakers pounded the tile. He rushed across the kitchen floor unsteadily with Beverly jogging along at his side; pretending to race him and letting him win. The kid was the spitting image of Ben, but he had Bev’s eyes. He gripped onto the bottom of Richie’s pants and held on. “Up.”

“You just got here and you wanna fly already, Meeks?” Richie scooped the kid and hefted him up while Bev sunk into his other side for a hug. “Ah, yes,” he said, reveling in the love. “All my best friends are here. Hashtag: blessed.”

“Your best friends are me and a two-year-old.” The queen of cutting to the truth, Bev snickered into his shoulder, “Hashtag: loser.” She let go of Richie and reached up to push her son’s sandy hair out of his eyes. “You really love your doofus uncle Richie, don’t you?”

Micah’s chubby hand was curled into the front of Richie’s shirt. His green eyes studied the buttons like they were the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. “Unka Itchie.”

“Can you blame him?” Richie glanced around the empty kitchen. “Where’d everybody else go?”

“They’re getting all the crap out of our van.” Bev grimaced, momentarily turning her sweet face sour. You get to see what your life is gonna be like soon. Once you have a kid you can never travel light ever again.”

“Oh, shit.” Richie handed Micah over to his mother’s arms. “Thank you, by the way, like, I can’t even start to—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah; before you get all sappy like you owe me your life.” Bev hoisted the baby a little higher on her hip. “You’re gonna have to pay my deductibles and go with me to child birth classes and buy me Chipotle whenever I want.”

Richie pouted his lips and nodded. “Perfectly reasonable.”

The side door that led to the driveway struggled open, and Eddie came in carrying a covered pot. Sadie was just behind him with Micah’s disassembled high chair in her arms. “Everyone else is running late,” he said to her over his shoulder. “They were supposed to be here forty minutes ago.”

“Are you complaining?” Sadie shook her head. “This is a good thing. The later they are, the less time they spend here.”

“Yeah, true, but all the food is gonna be cold.”

“Eddie, food is always cold on Thanksgiving.” Sadie placed the high chair down on the floor beside the kitchen table. “No one does this shit perfectly. But I need to know one thing, real quick. Did you guys not make any mashed potatoes? Because I’m gonna flip the fuck out.”

“Mom said she’s bringing scalloped potatoes,” Richie chimed in. “And watch the F-bombs around the baby,” he added, to which both Bev and Eddie laughed, probably at the irony of his saying such a thing.

“She is?” Sadie’s expression darkened. “Went better’ve helped her peel them, or I swear to God—”

“Down, killer,” Richie interrupted. “She has one of those doohickies where you stab the potato and spin it until the peel comes off like a ribbon.”

“Hey Mrs. Hanscom, can I stick your pot right into the oven or will it melt?”

“How would you know she has that?”

“Oh yeah, babe, it’s glazed cast iron.”

“Because I bought it for her, genius.”

Conversation in the kitchen swelled to a roar and branched off. Eddie and Sadie got to work rotating the pans they were trying to keep warm in the oven, adding Bev’s offering of mashed turnips into the mix. Sadie’s phone rang, and she answered it. The side door swung open for a second time, and Ben shoved his way into the kitchen with his arms loaded down with bags.

“Lookit Superman over here.” Bev set Micah down on the floor and came forward to help her husband. Ben threw her an air kiss as she unburdened him, and Richie took a second to appreciate their teamwork. They were dressed similarly and reminded him of tourists going on a daytrip to the Statue of Liberty: teeshirts and old jeans and dirty sneakers. Both were harried and tired around the eyes, but the love between them glowed bright from the chest.

 _This time next year, that’ll be us,_   Richie thought.

Ben shook his muscles out and breathlessly addressed Richie. “Bill just pulled up and he wants to know where to park.”

Richie held his arms out. “Nice to see you too, Benny.”

“Sorry. Hey, man.” He hugged Richie fiercely and clapped him on the back. “Coming here today was like packing for a trip to Antarctica. I’m ready to give in and pass out on your couch for the rest of the night.”

Bev begged to differ. “Benny, no. You’re not going to be that old man who naps at people’s houses during parties. At least not this early in our lives, you’re not.” She dug through one of the baby bags and pulled out a small, flat, brightly colored piece of nylon. “Check this out, Rich.” She backed up a couple feet and untucked the side of it. With a swishing sound and a muted pop, the thing expanded to a four-foot cube.

“Woah.” Richie raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize there would be magic tricks.”

“Travel play-pen.” Bev blew on her fingers like she had a hot hand in poker. “Ask about me. I got a lot of tips for you guys.” She took Micah’s hand and led him into the living room to set it up.

“Hey, Richie, can you go tell Bill to leave the space at the end of the driveway for Dad’s car?” Sadie held up her phone. “Mom just said they’re gonna get here in like ten minutes and they have a bunch of stuff, so—”

“Makin’ it happen, Cap’in.” Richie grabbed his jacket and two beers out of the fridge before heading outside. He jogged down to the end of the driveway and leaned in the window of Bill’s idling car, directing him to park down by the dead-end.

A few minutes later, Denbrough’s approaching form made Richie snicker. Bottle of wine in hand, knapsack thrown over one shoulder and dressed like a real dork in dockers and a polo with a brown dress coat thrown over. They shared an awkward hello; a convoluted hybrid of a fist bump and a hug, which was fitting. Out of all their high school friends, Bill was the one most removed from their circle.

In the years that stretched past college, one-by-one (or in some cases, two-by-two) most of the losers had bid adieu to the town that’d brought them together.

Mike’s parents bought a dairy farm down south. Out of college he’d opted to settle into the family business, so naturally, he followed them, but he still managed to keep in close touch with everyone left up north.

In junior year, Stanley’d gotten wrapped in journalism. He ended up trying his luck at on-camera in Los Angeles for a time before settling on local television news in Portland. His opposite-coastal correspondence was genuine, though spottier than Mike’s.

Bev and Ben’s post-collegiate paths had led them both to NYC, and after a twist of fate, they reconnected and rekindled something long buried. After paying out the ass for studio apartments the size of postage stamps, they decided to trade city life for the predictability of the ‘burbs. Shortly after their courthouse wedding, they bought a home in upstate New York.

Richie and Eddie had spent some time renting in northern NJ before planting their roots in a small town not far from where Bev and Ben lived. It was a decision that stemmed from business and pleasure in equal measure: they needed to be close to the city for Richie’s work, but wanted to live somewhere with plenty of fresh air and green spaces. They bought their dream home on a short sale and were grateful to have the Hanscoms as staples in their lives.

Bill was the only one who chose to remain in Maine. In senior year of college—around the approximate time that Stanley the walking cliché told him ‘I love you, but I’m not  _in love_   with you’—he decided that he wanted to be a writer. When he graduated, he rented a condo in downtown Derry and set to doing just that. Everyone knew he’d been published—magazine articles and internet opinion pieces, mostly—but no one knew much else about what he’d been up to.

“Stay out here with me a minute, huh Billy?” Richie handed Bill one of the cans of beer. “Gonna wait so I can help Pops bring in whatever shit they brought with them.” He popped the top and guzzled from it, wiping his mouth with a flourish. “I can’t fucking believe the elusive Bill Denbrough is actually at my house,” he marveled, mocking. “I suddenly feel like I’m a big deal or something.”

“Alright-alright; I get it.” Bill chuckled and shook his head as he placed the wine on the ground between his feet. He righted himself and opened his own can. “I know I’ve been kinda scatterbrained lately, but—”  He took a long swallow of beer. “How’s work? You still teaching acting classes?”

“Yup. It’s good money and the kids are great. Kind of a dream scenario. I barely do anything and get paid more than Eds does.”

Bill cocked his head. “You still want to be an actor, though, right?” It was only an innocent catch-up question, but it punched Richie a good one right in the gut. 

Did he still want to be an actor? Yes. Of course, he did. It made him feel alive, and he happened to be pretty good at it. Was it easy for a thirty-something dude with a gut and a borderline dadbod to land roles? Not especially. The parts weren’t coming as readily as they had when he was fresh out of college, and though it was somewhat disheartening, Richie’s priorities had changed drastically.

Mortgage. Insurance. Paper towels in bulk. Water bills and partial payments on a riding lawnmower and redoing the guest bathroom. Living a comfortable life was more important than living the dream. It was.  _It was._

For the second time that day, Richie found every cell in his body crying out for a cigarette. Standing in the driveway with a beer in hand on a holiday, and he couldn’t even have one crummy fucking cigarette.

_God, if you’re real, beam one down to me and I’ll never smoke another one after that._

Richie answered Bill’s question to the best of his ability. “I do and I don’t,” he said, and immediately wanted to kick himself for the choice of phrase, because it was the exact kind of response his mother gave when she wanted to evade a topic.

Bill accepted the cryptic answer without comment. “And Eddie’s still doing the counseling thing?”

“Yup, he’s floating between schools; trying to get tenure.” Richie pointed his can at Bill. “How ‘bout you?”

“I’m working on my manuscript. Pretty much a hermit most days. I get sucked in when I hit a groove. Sadie really understands that.” 

“Yeah, by the way. Spare me the gory details, but how’d all that happen, anyway?”

Bill scrunched up his eyes and drawled, “Uhhh. It started,” very obviously trying to appear casual, “like, I dunno. Five years ago, maybe?” 

“Wait, what? Sades said you guys have only been seeing each other since—” 

“No, yeah, we’ve only been…It’s recent, like, th-the closeness. I mean, closeness is subjective because it’s long-distance, but…we started talking daily when she was trying to figure out if grad school was the right move for her.” 

“My sister actually asked  _you_   for life advice? What a maroon.” 

“Kind of? She wasn’t sure if a creative writing program was worth it. And I told her it depended on what kind of writer she wanted to be.” He swallowed another sip of his beer. “Have you read any of her stuff? It’s good.” 

“Sadie would probably rather die than have me look at any of her writing.” 

Bill choked out a laugh. “Sure.” And in that syllable was a sarcastic bite that stung Richie like a wasp. 

_Not here five minutes and already jabbing all the sore spots. Un-fucking-canny._

Richie brought a hand up to play with his glasses and connected roughly with the side of his face. Wearing contacts was such a rare occurrence that he’d forgotten he’d put them in. He rushed past his unwillingness to validate his sister and protected her instead. “Just uh, do me a favor and be nice to her for the next couple of months.” 

“I’m always nice to her, Rich. That’s why she likes me.” 

“Yeah but be like, extra nice.” He licked his lips and tried to come up with the best sell without revealing too much. “She’s gonna have some stuff going on, and—” 

“Richie, I already know about what she’s doing for you guys.” 

“You do? Oh. Well, shit.”

“She had to tell me. The doctor said that the hormones she’s going on are going to affect her mood, a lot. But anyway, an anticlimactic ‘congratulations’ to you.” He held up his can to Richie. 

Richie tapped his beer to Bill’s but waved an arm dismissively. “Nah, there’s nothing to congratulate until Red pisses on a stick and a happy face appears or whatever the fuck happens. Eddie’s right; maybe we should wait to tell everyone until—" 

Went’s ancient station wagon pulled into the driveway in front of them, and with a devious smile, the old man blasted the horn three times, right in their faces. 

Richie handed his beer off to Bill. He grinned crookedly as he sidled up to the passenger’s side door to tease his mother. “Look who finally decided to show up.” 

“Richie, it’s a six-hour drive.” Maggie got out of the car and gave her son a long hug. “There was horrible traffic. Don’t start already, please.” 

“Not starting anything,” he said into his mother’s hair. “But when I show up this late for shit you act like I assassinated the Pope.”

“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Tozier,” Bill said, holding up both cans of beer dumbly.

Maggie’s voice was warm. “Hello, Bill.” She pulled away from Richie and went to greet him.

Went stepped out of the car and slammed the door. “Well, I don’t smell any fire. The house is still standing. Let me guess: we’re eating take-out Chinese.”

Richie exclaimed, “Pops gets off a good one!” and lifted his knee to slap at it.

Bill was recruited to help bring cases of soda and a couple trays of food into the house. Maggie slipped in with him to say her hellos, leaving Richie and his father alone in the driveway.

Belatedly, Richie realized that his parents brought along an uninvited guest: the dog they’d adopted because Maggie’s empty-nester syndrome was all too real. She was so well-behaved that she just sat there waiting for someone to let her out of the car. When Richie threw open the back door, she scrambled out in a brown blur and stood up on her hind legs to hug him around his hips. 

“How come you didn’t tell us you were bringin’ Paws Magoo?” He rubbed under the dog’s chin until she threw herself down on the asphalt to expose her belly. June was a mutt, and while no one could be perfectly sure of her exact breeding, Mike’d once declared her a Shepherd-Retriever cross.

Richie crouched down and stroked the silky fur on her chest. “I thought you were gonna board her.”

Went didn’t answer right away. He opened the hatch-back and started pulling out folding chairs. “Are you happy to see her?”

“No, I hate her,” Richie deadpanned, still petting the dog lovingly. “Can’t you tell?”

“Mmn-hmmn. How’d you like to see her a lot more often?”

“Hold up.” He removed his hands from June and stood tall to face his father. “You wanna get rid of her?” Asking the question made him taste bile in the back of his throat.

“We don’t  _want_   to,” Went said carefully, “but your mother can’t handle her on the leash anymore.”

Richie got defensive on the dog’s behalf. “Whadd’ya think, you’d just bring her here and dump her off?”

Went sighed up at the clear November sky. “I  _thought_   I’d ask you and your sister if you were interested, or if you knew anyone who wanted a dog. And if the answer is no, your mother got us a hotel reservation at a place that allows pets.” He slammed the back of the car closed. “She feels terribly guilty about all of this; didn’t have the heart to board the old girl under the circumstances.”

“But Juney isn’t old; are you girl?” Richie sang the words and his voice went up an octave. The dog sat up on her haunches, listening. “No! You’re not! You’re not old.”

“She’s no pup, Rich. It’ll be hard for us to find someone willing to take her.”

Richie sunk back down so he was eye level with June. He knew it was ridiculous, but her amber eyes looked sad, like she knew exactly what they were talking about. “I’m allergic,” he said softly. He was, but not that much. Enough that he woke up with red eyes and an itchy throat if June slept in bed with him the whole night. Preventable stuff.

 “Mildly,” Went said, speaking Richie’s thoughts.

“Says you.”

“Think about it, then. Maybe sleep on it. You know she’s house-trained. A terror on the leash and set in her ways, I suppose, but she’s nine; what do you expect?”

“We could—  I mean, I  _would_ ,  but it’s— This really isn’t a good time for us to take on a new responsibility.”

_Fuck, I’m already thinking like a dad and the baby isn’t even conceived yet._

“Rich, you’re settled in your house; your job is flexible.” Went threw up his hands. “You boys have a big yard; you’re both able bodied… am I missing something, here?”

Everything Went said was true, and Richie couldn’t argue about it without giving away the important bit of information the old man wasn’t yet privy to. “I’ll run it by the boss. See what he thinks.”

“That’s all I’m asking.”

“You didn’t actually  _ask_ ,  y’know. I offered.”

Went shrugged off his son’s words and picked up two of the chairs. “Help me with these?” He headed towards the side door. June’s collar jingled as she heaved herself up and obediently followed behind him. “We would’ve gotten you a set of folding chairs for a house warming gift, if you boys had a party.”

Richie released a frustrated sigh. “Why can’t people just buy gifts because they want to?” He lifted two of the chairs with one hand and held his arm high, so they hung down over his shoulder. “Why does there always have to be some event?”

“Welcome to being an adult.” Went opened the door and held it for Richie. “Juney, come on, girl.”

 

~*+*~

 

Sonia and her family were last to arrive, and Richie was surprised to find his mother-in-law pliant and a bit subdued. After a brief, private hello with her son in the kitchen, she hugged everyone else, complimented the décor, and made yummy noises at the smells coming from the kitchen. He thought maybe it was her sisters’ presence that grounded her. Richie’d only met them a couple times over the years. They were kooky in their own rights, but fun, specifically Kathy, who took an instant liking to both Bev and Sadie. She brought along with her the makings for a cranberry sherbet rum punch.

Food service ended up being the buffet-style free-for-all that Richie’d envisioned. They placed the trays on the counter and invited everyone to go HAM. Seating was a shit-show. Bev, Ben, Bill and Sadie were banished to the breakfast nook with the baby. June was a smart cookie and sat alert on the kitchen floor, waiting patiently for Micah to drop something.

The rest of the group convened around the dining room table; squeezed in too close for comfort with the extra chairs. The parents led the conversation. Typical stuff:  _What-have-you-been-up-to_ this and  _“I’ve got to try that recipe!”_ that. Richie and Eddie let Sonia and Went have the heads of the table, which might have seemed like a gesture born out of respect. They really only did it so they could sit next to one another.

Eddie’d visibly relaxed after the arrival of his mother. The entire reunion appeared to be eerily painless for him, but maybe his aunt’s punch helped somewhat. Throughout the meal, he threw expectant eyes Richie’s way, and the questions that were undoubtedly on his mind were tattooed right there on his irises.  _“Are you still going to tell them? When?”_

_Eds, I know. But maybe you were right. Maybe we should wait ‘til we have a sonogram to show._

After his conversation with Bill, Richie got the coldest of feet regarding disclosure, so he stress-ate to avoid blabbing. He shoveled all available food into his mouth without noticing the taste of it.

_“Hey, everyone; listen up. We’re gonna make a baby in a lab, and there’s a 70% chance it won’t take. Please congratulate us.”_

Richie also hadn’t gotten the opportunity to ask his husband if he maybe, possibly, kind-of sort-of wanted to adopt June, though it was a good sign that Eddie’d been pleasantly surprised to see her enter the kitchen. He wasn’t the biggest fan of wet dog smell or messes, but he was always gentle with her. Big deal if he wanted to wash his hands right away after he gave her a rubdown.

Went’s voice came from the ether and made Richie jump. “You’ve been mighty quiet.” He sat cattycorner to Richie and had obviously been watching him with interest for a few minutes. “What’s on your mind, son?”

Maggie’s monologue about the tried-and-true best formula for a good roux derailed. It was like her Spidey sense had just kicked in. “Richard, is everything alright?”

“You two both need to lay off the sauce. I’m fi—"

Eddie stopped Richie by placing a hand on his thigh. “We have something to tell everyone,” he said softly. “And it’s probably smarter for us to wait until it’s concrete, but we’re really excited about it.”

Sonia’s eyebrows almost hit her hairline. “Are you adopting a child?”

“Oh my God,” Maggie breathed in a rush, “did you two agree to take June, because I’m so relieved.”

Eddie blinked at Richie blankly. “Take June? Like to keep?”

“Yeah, uh,” Richie chuckled nervously, “didn’t have a chance to see if that’s something we both wanna—”

“Can we let the boy tell us his news?” Went asked the question to everyone and no one at the same time. “Eddie, please continue. We’ll go back to the dog later.”

“Um,” Eddie began, and then froze. He looked over at Richie again and his face broke into a smile.

In that curve of Eddie’s mouth and in the crinkles of his cheeks, Richie saw the entire world. He couldn’t think of one good memory he had that Eddie wasn’t present for, and the absolute worst time in his entire life was the nine months they were apart. They could take on anything and everything together: a stressful week of holiday prep; a dog; a baby.

Richie smiled back. “Tell ‘em, Eds.”

“We want to have a baby,” he said, still smiling, his cheeks going crimson, “and Beverly volunteered to be our surrogate.”

Maggie let out a little squeal and got up immediately to pull Eddie out of his chair. When she was done hugging him she leaned over Richie from behind and kissed his cheek. “Baby, this is wonderful news. I’m so happy for you.”

“Thanks, Mom.” He felt his ears heating up and tried to brush it off. “It still has to take, though, y’know," he mumbled as Maggie resumed her seat. "It’s not guaranteed at this point.”

“Nothing in this life is guaranteed,” Went said amiably as he stuck out his hand and leaned across the table to shake Richie’s and then Eddie’s. “Congrats, boys.”

The Kaspbrak aunts and cousin also gave them hearty congratulations, but Richie and Eddie’s smiles fell in unison when Sonia spoke.

“How does the baby get conceived?” There was something like a grin on her face, but her voice didn’t match. “I suppose it can’t possibly be done in a natural way,” she added as she glanced at her son.

Once those words were uttered, two things happened: Eddie’s aunts and cousin got up hastily to clear plates, and Eddie’s breathing sped up and went shallow.

Richie’s jaw set when he heard that sound. Mother or mother-in-law or whomever else, he wasn’t about to let this judgmental woman dictate the state of his husband’s lungs. After a second’s consideration, he opted against complete decimation.

“Well, you know, Sonia, the sperm is formed inside the testicle, right? Right in the back of the sack. And then after arousal, it makes a long journey through the—”

“Richard,” Maggie said quietly. She aimed a pained glance towards Sonia’s shocked face.  “You’re a little old for this, aren’t you?”

“ _I’m_   a little old?” Richie held up a hand to block Sonia’s view of his lips and stage-whispered, “She asked where babies come from, Mom. What was I supposed to do, tell her about the stork?” and it had the effect he hoped for: Eddie and Went both snickered, while Sonia was knocked for a speechless loop.

Ignoring all of them, Maggie answered Sonia’s question and pronounced her explanation like she was asking a question of her own. “I think they have to find an egg donor and then they mix the sperm and egg in a little dish.”

Went nodded along with his wife’s words, adding, “Mighty expensive.”

“We have enough in savings for one try,” Richie told his father, and admitting that fact out loud made his mouth go drier than the Sahara. All the money they had left, laid down on terrible odds. They couldn’t gamble any bigger unless they went to Vegas. Cold fear crept into the cracks of the joy Richie’d felt only a few moments before. The possibility of blowing everything on nothing. The devastation afterwards. He thought he might not be able to handle it when all was said and done.

Under the table, Eddie’s fingers curled around Richie’s thumb and squeezed.

“Whose egg is it going to be?” Maggie asked tentatively. “Or have you not picked one, yet? I know that in fertility clinics they have a book full of head shots and—”

“We uh—” Richie stood up suddenly and almost knocked his chair backwards. His heart had somehow climbed up into his throat, and there was a kitchen timer going off inside his ear. He needed to get as far away from the conversation as humanly possible. “Can you excuse us for a minute?”

Went nodded. “Take all the time you need, son.”

He didn’t bother to check if Eddie was following him; Richie made a beeline for their bedroom and rushed inside.

The door clicked shut. Eddie asked, “Was it my mother?” with pure confusion bobbing his cadence up and down.

Richie laughed sharply at that, a little too hysterically. “Fuck. Sorry.” He turned around and a wave of weakness coursed through him in an instant. He felt like he might fall. “I had to—  I just couldn’t keep—  Fuck.”

“Richie, you’re extra pale.” Eddie’s concerned eyes raked all over his face. “Are you okay?” He grabbed onto Richie’s forearm and led him over to the bed. “Sit down.”

He plopped on his ass and fell onto his back. The pulse in his neck pounded so hard that he could count every beat without laying a finger on it. For the first time since he was in junior high, Richie felt like he was going to have a full-blown panic attack. He tried to stave it off the only way he knew how and stared up at the ceiling, drawing deep, measured breaths.

Eddie climbed on the bed beside him and put a cool hand on his neck. “Baby, why are you so hot?”

Richie forced out a minuscule “Breathe with me?” and he knew no context was required. He blew a steady gust of air out of his mouth. “Six out; four in.” It was the method they’d used to (mostly) cure Eddie’s ‘asthma.’

“Yeah.” Eddie swept Richie’s sweaty hair back from his face. “Sure, I will.”

They reclined together in the dim room for several minutes, Eddie running his hands through Richie’s hair, inhaling and exhaling along with him until his heart-rate slowed and the jaggedness of his breathing evened out.

“Thanks,” Richie whispered when it passed, breaking the silence.

“Do you feel better?” Eddie kissed a trail along Richie's jawline, whispering against his cheek, “Were you— Did you have a—”

“Almost.” He swallowed thickly and sighed. "Listen, can we can it on the baby talk when we go back out there? Let Sades tell them her part in it, if she w— I just wanna wait. You were right."

Eddie nodded and danced his fingers over the buttons on Richie’s shirt. “Was it because of the money? I saw your face when you said we only have enough for one try.”

“No, Eds.” Richie placed his hand over Eddie’s and held it to his chest. “I started thinking about what it would be like to go through the whole process and have it be a bust. It made me freak out.” He managed a small smile. “But I guess that means I really want to have a baby.”

“I do, too.” Eddie studied Richie’s face for a few seconds. He smirked. “Did you already tell your dad that we’d take the dog?”

“No. I told him that I’d ask you if we could, but then I kinda went chicken-shit.”

“But we can’t; you’re allergic to her.”

“Mildly,” Richie shot back, adopting his father’s assessment when it served him.

Eddie rolled his eyes at that but didn’t argue. “I thought you aren’t supposed to get a new pet when you’re trying to have a baby.”

“Uh-uh, it’s a bad idea to get a  _puppy_ ,  because you’ll have two babies on your hands.” Richie kneaded Eddie’s hand and went for the hard sell. “Juney is nine. She’s healthy. She’s trained. She doesn’t chew on things; doesn’t go inside the house. If she sees a squirrel up ahead while you’re walking her she’ll rip your arm right out the socket, but shit, nobody’s perfect.”

Eddie bobbed his head side-to-side, obviously considering it. “Where’s she gonna go if we say no?”

“I dunno, the glue factory? ‘A farm upstate’?”

Putting on a face like he might puke, Eddie yanked his hand out of Richie’s. “Richie, that’s awful.”

“Yeah, the whole thing is awful, Eds. No one else is gonna take her. All I can picture is her stupid sad face when Went leaves her at a shelter. She won’t understand why.” The image made Richie’s eyes start welling up and he blinked it back. Ridiculous; crying over someone else’s dog.   _What the fuck is happening to me?_

“You wanna take her,” Eddie said. It wasn’t a question.

Richie nodded his response, because he didn’t trust himself to speak.

“ “Kay. I’ll go tell them she can stay,” Eddie said, and it was just as simple as that. He sat up, leaned over Richie and planted a kiss on his forehead before getting off the bed. “Come back to us whenever you’re ready. No rush.”

“Thank you, baby,” Richie said. Eddie’s support and selflessness filled the center of his chest with a gooey warmth. He closed his eyes. “Love you so much, Eds.”

“Love you, too.” He slipped out and shut the door behind him.

 

~*+*~

 

The remainder of the evening tumbled past. Punch. Dessert. Coffee. Tea.

Stuffed bodies recovered on the couch. At every commercial break, the TV in the living room flipped back and forth between  _The Wizard of Oz_   and the football game.

A teary Maggie gave Richie detailed instructions regarding June’s care and he exercised all the restraint he had when he kept his most smart-ass replies to himself. They took the dog out back and let her run around the yard while the sun set.

Mr. and Mrs. Hanscom were the ultimate party poopers. They got sleepy as easily as their two-year-old, and their whole family retired to the downstairs guest room before the clock struck eight.

Sonia’d dropped her rudeness regarding the baby news and focused instead on the announcement that her son had agreed to keep June. She brought up Eddie’s phantom allergies, fleas, rabies, scabies, lock jaw—clearly grasping at any available straws.

Fed up and loose on rum punch, Eddie took a stand and told his mother that if she had a problem with their decision she could always stay with her sisters at the hotel, which raised a few eyebrows and effectively shut her up. Way earlier than they expected her to, Sonia retired to her room upstairs in a huff. Richie figured it was a clever play to coax Eddie into following after her and apologizing, but thankfully, he didn’t take that bait.

The rest of the family departures were a blur to Richie. He hugged, thanked, received thanks, teased his mother for crying, roasted his father for misplacing his keys, and couldn’t resist the urge to bellow  _“Y’all don’t come back now, y’hear,”_ as he saw people out.

After a nightcap, Sadie and Bill took the room opposite Sonia’s. Eddie walked them up to make sure they had enough blankets.

As soon as he was alone downstairs, Richie tore off his socks and pants, chucking them into a heap on the floor. The tinkle of a bell reminded him that June was there, and he whipped around to face her while he undid the buttons on his shirt. “Don’t watch me, creep.”

They’d placed her bed in the corner of the living room, and in typical dog fashion she was spread out on the floor beside it with her chin resting on the fluffiest part. She cocked an ear his way but didn’t budge.

Richie sat back down when he heard the pattern of creaks Eddie’s footsteps made in the upstairs hallway. He tried to appear casual, draping his long arms along the back of the couch and pertly crossing his legs.

Eddie trooped back down the stairs. He was still fully dressed and grinned at Richie’s pantsless state. Walking slowly to the center of the living room, he peeled each of his suspenders down. “Finally, it’s over.” He turned and fell back onto the couch with a sigh, leaning his head against Richie’s shoulder and curling his legs beneath himself. “We did it.”

“Yup, we did baby,” Richie said, wrapping an arm around him, “but at what cost?”

Yawning unabashedly, Eddie scrubbed at his eyes with both hands. “What do you mean?”

“You look like you could use about a week of uninterrupted sleep.”

“Thanks. That makes me feel really hot.”

“You are.” Richie traced his thumb over the top of Eddie’s cheek, right where the blue patch of skin underneath his eye met the apple. “A hot raccoon,” he said with a smile. “Like Rocket.”

Eddie lightly slapped his hand away. He took his weight off of Richie, turned his body and laid flat across the couch, dropping his feet into Richie’s lap. “Furry.”

“You know it.” Richie gripped Eddie on both ankles and bit down on a smile. He made a big production out of slowly dragging him closer like he was a rope, pulling on his shins, then calves, then thighs.

When his ass bumped into the side of Richie’s leg, Eddie pursed his lips. He lifted himself and knelt to straddle Richie, slipping both his hands inside Richie’s open shirt. “Better?”

“Loads.” Tilting his head, he set to munching and slobbering all over the side of Eddie’s neck.

Usually when Richie did that, Eddie would whine and wriggle, but he remained quiet and totally still, save the movement of his thumbs running circles over Richie’s ribs. It was possible that he was simply too tired to mess around. They were both pretty wrecked.

Richie pulled his mouth away and skidded feathery fingers over the goosebumps and welt he’d just left behind on Eddie’s skin. “How ‘bout you take a bath, put on something fuzzy, and then we can snuggle in bed with Juney and watch  _Planes Trains and Automobiles_? A perfect Thanksgiving movie about frustration and how much people suck.”

Eddie squinted his eyes and appeared to be thinking it over, but when he spoke, it was obvious that his mind was on a completely different track. “I think I’d rather fuck you instead.”

Chuckling, Richie asked, “Who wouldn’t?” reflexively, but belated realization made his mouth snap shut and his eyebrows quirk. “Oh. You mean you wanna—” He held his downturned hands in front of his chest and panted with his tongue hanging out: a pretty good impression of June begging for a treat.

Eddie smiled and slipped his fingers into Richie’s hair, sweeping them down and tugging on the curls at the base of his neck. “I wanna."

“Wait, no, but I just ate like a fuckin’ pig,” Richie lamented. He hugged his arms around his middle, acutely aware of how bloated and self-conscious he felt. “And anyway, your mom and my sister are right upstairs.”

“Sadie was already falling asleep when I got them a spare blanket.”

“Okay, but your mom…she’s a fuckin’ vampire and she’s probably hanging from the ceiling up there listening to us right now.”

“Yeah, so?”

Giggling, Richie shoved Eddie in the chest. “Whadd’ya mean, ‘yeah, so?’ ” He ducked his head bashfully, but Eddie caught him under the chin to tip his face up. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

It wasn’t that he didn’t  _want_   to grant Eddie’s request. When they had sex, Richie topped more often than not, and it wasn’t because he preferred it; it was because Eddie was the king of getting off on teasing, and his base-thick cock reduced Richie to a begging, whimpering mess. He liked to play games with Richie, rapidly edging him towards ecstasy only to back off suddenly, relishing in the desperate, strangled noises that passed through his lips.

It’d been a long time since Richie felt compelled to hide from his husband, but when Eddie sunk into him, control over his brain and mouth were entirely relinquished and everything inside himself came spilling out—literally and figuratively. It required him to be in a certain head-space. An unselfconscious head-space, and Richie rarely found himself in one of those as of late.

Flushing to the tips of his ears, Richie looked down at the carpet and said what he knew Eddie wanted to hear in a rush: “Eds, you know that I’m incapable of being quiet when you stick your fat dick into me.”

Eddie bit down on his lower lip, delighted. “That’s the best part.” He leaned back, balancing his hands on Richie’s knees, pushing their crotches flush, and Richie felt the outline of him; rock hard through the constrictive material of his expensive pants.

Inhaling sharply, Richie crimped his eyebrows together and pointed up, still trying to come up with excuses, but they both knew he was about to cave. “I don’t think Sonia K has a burning desire to hear me wailing like a fuckin’ alley cat.”

With the most angelic look on his face, Eddie sat up a little straighter and deadpanned, “This is our house. This is our rules,” as he rocked his hips in a slow figure eight.

Richie’s breathing stuttered, and he whimpered, tipping his own hips up and clamping his hands down on the tops of Eddie’s thighs to maximize the friction, but he couldn’t get close enough through those dress pants. He caved. “Do the house rules state that we have to make all our guests super uncomfortable? I think I’m on board; just want to make sure.”

Eddie stopped his slow grind on a dime and shifted to the side, inching away until he left Richie’s lap. In the same soft, emotionless voice, he gave Richie a chill as he stated his demands. “The house rules, are that you have to go in there,” without breaking eye contact, he raised an arm and pointed towards the bedroom, “get yourself ready for me, and wait.”

“Ohhh.” Richie widened his eyes. Eddie didn’t just want to fuck him; Eddie wanted to  _fuck._ The blow-off-steam type of shit that left them both exhausted and sweaty with scratches on random parts of their bodies. All of Richie’s reservations crumbled faster than a stack of cards in a stiff breeze. He reached down and palmed himself through his underwear. The cotton was already damp, and he tugged up. “It’s like that, huh?” 

“Clock’s ticking,” was all Eddie said, cold and dismissive, like he didn’t actually give a shit what Richie wanted. Like he could’ve changed his mind at any second and left Richie high and dry and holding his own dick. The attitude pushed the exact right button deep inside Richie, and Eddie knew it.

_The little shithead._

Richie didn’t bother with attempting a sexy exit; he stumbled his way up and hustled out of the room, going directly to the master bath to check on a couple things. When he was sure he was in the clear, he stripped naked and flung himself down on top of the bedspread with a little bottle of lube.

It’d been a while since he prepped on his own. He'd always been too impatient to do the job thoroughly when it came to himself, and the feeling of his own bony fingers setting a buzz off in his lower body was at once too much and not enough. Eddie was better at it anyway. Richie used to repeat that old classic, self-deprecating joke:  _'the easiest way to shut me up is to put a dick in my mouth,'_ but Eddie's stout fingers deftly maneuvering inside him did the trick just as well. 

Richie lubed up his fingers and took a deep breath. Gripping his already dripping cock, he held his legs up like he was doing reverse crunches and hissed through his teeth while he inserted one long digit into his hole, pushing it in until it disappeared and the walls of himself closed in on it. Rare enough to be foreign, the mission was exploratory, and the goal of it all wasn’t much about stretching, because Richie liked to feel it when Eddie peeled him apart.

Adding his middle finger, Richie dipped it deep, and his breathing hitched when the pad of it connected with the spongy pleasure center inside himself. He grazed it, pressing firm, heat pooling in his lower stomach and tingling in waves. It felt like his blood was vibrating, and the sensation made him want to hop off the bed and shake out all his limbs. Weird, frenetic energy that had nowhere to go when he was by himself. He ached for Eddie to appear and graciously do the job for him, to give his energy somewhere to go, but he added a third finger anyway, massaging, pretending his fingers were Eddie's fingers, Eddie's dick, getting himself ready to be slammed over and over like a screen door in the summertime. 

Richie was out of breath, sweaty, and third-knuckle-deep when he heard the door creak open and click closed.

With all the presence of a regal authority, Eddie entered the room silently and stood there, expressionless, watching Richie’s private moment. Removing his clothes without urgency, he took off each item, folded it and made a neat pile on the chest at the foot of the bed. He wasn’t in a rush. He didn’t _need_ to touch Richie. He came into the room for a release; that was all. Even though Richie knew all that, and wanted to grant it to his husband, he couldn’t help feeling needy and selfish, because just looking at Eddie, he wanted the exact opposite.

The moonlight coming through the window illuminated Eddie only on one side, shrouding one half of his face and solid chest in darkness. He was and wasn't the boy that Richie'd accosted with overzealous flirting at the movie theater all those years ago, a fact that Richie appreciated every chance he got.

Taller by a few inches; thicker almost everywhere. Always golden. Always beautiful. The biggest part of Eddie back then, the fear that lived inside him, it'd diminished. It cropped up every now and again, but that boy, the one who was so scared to get his dick sucked that he put it off for two months, he didn't exist anymore. Cool unaffectedness surrounded him like an aura, and the only indication of his interest in Richie’s display was the rising outline of his erection. The length of it and the shadow it cast reminded Richie of a time-lapse video of a sundial. A really pretty, shiny, perfectly dick-shaped arm of a sundial.

He wanted to stop the game before it got too deep, pull Eddie down onto the bed and lick over his clavicle until he wanted to make love instead, but Eddie didn't want that. Not now. Anticipation of what might come got the best of Richie, and a shuddery moan escaped him as he pulled his fingers out of himself. Both his trembling hands moved on their own to cover and press his dick up flat against his stomach. “Sexy time isn’t a spectator sport, kid,” he said, voice hoarse and unsteady.

Eddie’s eyebrows furrowed, and his eyes unfocused, losing their determined stare. “Why do I feel like I’ve heard that before?”

“You have. I’m terribly unoriginal and feeling nostalgic." Richie licked his lips. He suddenly became hyper-aware of his nakedness. "So, are you gonna stop?” 

“Stop what?”

“Spectating,” Richie clarified, before swallowing the lump in his throat. He needed Eddie to get on with it, to do something—anything, it wouldn’t have mattered. Eddie could have kissed Richie gently or fucked him until he wept or just jerked off on his face and walked away, and in that moment, Richie would have thanked him for any of it. He would have begged for more.

Eddie seemed to sense his urgency. He stepped closer to the bed, took the bottle of lube in hand and squeezed some into his palm. The muscles in his forearm pulsed as he stroked his cock, and the lube coating it made wet, sucking sounds. “Get on all fours,” he said in a low and commanding voice. A voice bigger than himself that made him sound like a stranger.

However aroused he was, however desperate, Richie’s first instinct when Eddie said those words in that voice was to make a  _Human Centipede_   joke, but he held it back. Just barely. Instead, he sat up slowly on his knees and said, “Usually, I need at least one kiss on the mouth before I bend over and cough for strange men,” even though he knew he might regret it.

Dropping both his dick and his tough-guy act in one exhale, Eddie threw up his hands in frustration. “Do you have to make a joke right now?”

“Baby, did you get amnesia on the way in here?” Richie looked high and low, all around the room, feigning total confusion. He stopped the act and captured Eddie’s eyes with his own. “Yes. I have to make a joke right now. You shoulda heard the one that didn’t make the cut. It was a whopper.”

“Lie down on your back instead,” he growled, just as forceful as before, tugging his dick like he was mad at it.

Charmed by Eddie’s bravado, Richie smiled softly. He’d already started losing his boner but he didn’t care. “I love how you’re always such a cute, fuckin’ bossy top.”

“I’m not trying to be cute,” Eddie spat, totally fed up. “I wanted to—” His shoulders dropped, and the fire left his eyes. He looked like he was ashamed of himself. “Fuck, baby. I know you want— Today was a lot…and I wanted to—”

“End it with a bang?” Richie offered, cringing right after he said it, because Eddie could have blown a microchip over that one.

But Eddie snickered in spite of everything and shrugged. “Something like that.”

Nodding resolutely, Richie decided he'd succumb. If that's how Eddie wanted it, he'd provide. He slowly walked on his knees to change his direction on the bed and reclined lengthwise on his back, scooting his ass to the edge of the mattress with his knees bent up. “Fine, we’ll do it your way, but I’m just telling you right now: if you tell me we have to stop because my legs are too heavy I’m gonna feel like Martha Dumptruck.”

It was thinly veiled insecurity wrapped inside a joke, and Eddie didn’t respond to it. He quietly came around to the side of the bed and ran a tender hand over each of Richie’s legs, one and then the other, took his time tipping them down to the side until Richie was spread open. Eddie knelt beside the bed, brought his face low, and brushed butterfly kisses along the most sensitive part of Richie’s inner thigh.

Based on the way Eddie'd entered the room, Richie hadn’t expected the first move to be so gentle, and he melted, whining through his nose as his body went heavy and sunk deeper into the bed, blood rushing back into his dick so fast that his toes went tingly. Hot breath fluttered in pulses along his skin, edging closer and closer to his crotch. Richie writhed, unable to keep still, wanting (needing) Eddie’s mouth on him, but it didn’t make it all the way there, because Eddie halted and sucked, teeth grazing and stinging in his thigh crease.

Richie gasped and bucked his hips and then Eddie one-upped. His still-lubed fingers found their way over Richie’s hole, skirting past it and landing just above, running a tentative, tickly circle on his taint. It was the exact  _not-quite-there-but-close_   teasing that Eddie loved, and he got the desired result when Richie spasmed and babbled out a string of nonsense.

“I fucking love it when you go nonverbal,” he rasped, before licking a hot stripe on the side of Richie’s balls. He laved his tongue higher, up the shaft until his lips danced over the slick head of Richie’s cock. Cupping Richie’s balls gently, Eddie flicked his tongue around the perimeter of the head, paying close attention to the most sensitive spot. His favorite spot.

Richie gripped two fistfuls of the bedspread and arched his back. “Fuck, Eds. I need you t—” A throaty moan slipped out of his gut and crushed his attempt to speak as Eddie’s mouth enveloped all of him in warm wetness.

As he bobbed his head up and down, too slow, Eddie slid two of his fingers inside Richie and stretched them up, flicking them in rhythm with his suction until Richie saw stars.

 _“ Fuck! ”_   Richie yelled it. Extending even the minimum effort to keep his voice down was impossible, and he didn’t give a fuck anymore. “Forget…everything I said. Make me scream, Eddie,” he managed, just a hair under begging. The heat of Eddie’s mouth and fingers left him, and Richie squeezed his eyes shut, recovering, heaving deep breaths, preparing.

The cap of the lube bottle clicked. “Hold your legs up,” Eddie said, encouraging, all the pretense of the way he'd begun the encounter vaporized. “And don’t worry about them being too heavy. Lean them on me.”

It was a constrictive position, one that required trust, and Richie did exactly as he was told, clenching his lower abs to fold himself in half until Eddie’s damp chest pressed up against the backs of his knees. It made Richie feel smaller than actually he was, cocooned and protected by Eddie, even though his gangly stems were too long and in the way. 

The parts of Eddie that he could see were all warm and flushed with heat: his graceful neck and baby face and the tips of his shoulders. Eddie's hands settled on Richie's thighs, and the head of his cock bumped into Richie's hole, poked beside it a couple times before Richie couldn't take it. He reached down and guided it in, whimpering and biting down on his lower lip when he felt that familiar hot stretch.

With one slow-motion thrust, Eddie’s dick slid all the way in, and they both sighed a desperate exhale of relief in unison. Breathy and far away, laughing a little, Eddie said, “Fuck, you’re so tight; I always forget that,” and closed his eyes, adam’s apple bobbing, eyebrows tensing and struggling.

“Flattery… will…g-get…you…  _fuck_.” Eddie started to pull back out, equally as slowly as he'd entered, and Richie reached his arms as far down as he could, trying to lock onto Eddie’s lower half and keep him flush, but Eddie’s body was too slippery. It moved further away from his hands, and Eddie’s cock slid halfway out until it stopped. “Fucking faster, Eds,” Richie growled, pleading and panting, numb useless fingers fumbling and clawing over the front of Eddie’s thighs.

“When I…. say so,” Eddie whispered delicately as he painstakingly pushed himself all the way back in. His eyes gleamed in the moonlight, still bone-tired with dark circles, but  _alive,_ enjoying every second of it. “I have to go slow. ‘m not tryin’ to….” He leaned forward, folding Richie deeper in half to crash their mouths together for a sloppy, frantic kiss. “I really wanted to fuck with you," he admitted with a grin, "but you feel so fucking good I don’t think I can. I won't.”

“Eds,” Richie whispered against Eddie’s lips, voice ruined and cracking, “I need you to— Fuck, I  _need_ —”  He lost his ability to speak and whined high, unrestrained, because Eddie chose that moment to fuck one hard pump into him, a slam, and a white-hot burst exploded in the center of Richie’s belly, clouding his vision and making his lower back go numb. Laughing breathlessly, Richie covered his face with both hands. “Holy shit. Fuck, please, again. Keep doing that.”

Eddie licked his lips and obliged. He started pumping a quick pace, eyes still jubilant and huge in the dark. “Do you wanna come?” he asked brightly. 

Pathetically, Richie sobbed, “Yes,” and he was already close but if he let Eddie in on that secret he thought the little shithead might slow down and start building it up all over again. He'd told Richie he was done playing games, kind of promised it, but people said a lot of insincere shit when they were balls deep. “Make me come.”

“I wanna make you come,” Eddie said earnestly, merciful and sweet at the end of the longest day. A day full of stress and family bullshit and near-breakdowns that they’d survived together. With only a little bit of struggle, he wrapped his arms around all of Richie, collected him at the shoulders and thrusted faster, gaining momentum with each pump of his hips.

Richie tried to match Eddie’s rhythm, rocking his lower body forward and back, but he was like a useless overturned turtle, and a deliciously deep itch of pulsing pressure tingled in his lower back, wrapping around his abdomen. He got lost in it, in the feeling of Eddie surrounding him and filling him at the same time. “Don’t stop…I, fuck...baby…love...don’t…pull out,” he blathered, unsure of what he’d even said, or if it made sense.

Eddie switched up his direction, thrusting up instead of in, bludgeoning Richie right in his sweet spot, and Richie lost it without warning, shaking and crying out as he spurted up onto himself.

After a few more pumps, Eddie came suddenly with a whine under his breath, spilling his heat inside Richie and gyrating his hips slower and slower until they stopped moving. He pulled out and collapsed on the bed, chuckling as he darted his hands behind Richie’s clammy neck and drew him closer for a kiss.

Richie let his legs fall off the bed and hit the floor with a thump. Totally drained, he pushed his tongue against Eddie’s cranberry punch tongue lazily, drinking him in. "Love you," he said, barely vocalizing.

"Love you, baby." Eddie pecked kisses on Richie’s eyes and scratched soothing circles on his scalp. “Was that okay?”

“Okay? It was fuckin’  _great.”_ Richie attempted to lift himself, because he knew Eddie would want to immediately clean the mess they’d made, but his body protested and he gave up, resigning himself to just laying there covered in it. It couldn’t be helped; his lower back and thighs were too numb to support his weight. He felt Eddie leave the bed and heard him moving around on the carpet. The light in the bathroom flicked on.

“Ba'y, 'ou 'otta move so I c' n 'ake 's bedsp'ead 'ff," Eddie said, garbled by the toothbrush in his mouth.

“Why do we have to be fancy?” Rocking himself until he was in a sitting position, Richie whined, “Let’s just sleep in our jizz like we used to.”

“ 'ike _you_   use'ta,” Eddie chastised as he toweled himself off. He left the room to spit, came back and wiped Richie’s chest and tummy. “Come on; it’ll take less than a minute for me to throw this on the floor.”

“Fine.” Richie reluctantly heaved himself up on rubbery legs and made a quick trip to the bathroom. He shut the door and took care of a more personal sort of cleanup. After brushing his teeth and removing his contacts, he started walking back to the bed, but stopped when he remembered something important. He opened up the bedroom door. June was sprawled out right in the middle of the walkway and her big, hopeful eyes shimmered in the dark. “C’mon, babe. I know you want to.”

The dog wasted no time bounding into the room. She jumped up on the bed with a jingle and curled into a ball beside Richie's pillow. Richie slipped into the sheets facing her and slid backwards like a heat seeking missile searching for Eddie’s warmth. They connected; back to chest.

Arms snaked around Richie’s middle. Eddie’s sleepy voice was gentle behind his ear. “If she sleeps in here you’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Richie said with a yawn. “But she shouldn’t have to spend her first night in a new house all alone on account’a me.”

Eddie’s lips fluttered on the back of his neck. Richie drifted off quickly, but on the way to dreamland he heard Eddie whisper.

“You’re gonna be a really good dad.” 

 

~*+*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for any typos; editing this was a disaster. I should be working on other stories but this one has hijacked my brain! Sometimes it be like that.
> 
> Thanks for reading! [ @speakslowtellmelove ](https://speakslowtellmelove.tumblr.com)on the 'blr
> 
> also i made a playlist: [ Eddie, my love ](https://open.spotify.com/user/ly8b3d8qsj68h0skcce7c001k/playlist/73DRRtDFqFKUXKQpzHGfpo)
> 
> also edit: someone asked what Eddie does for a living and I should have clarified--he's a high school guidance counselor, like he wanted to be in wib. He's the only one of his friends who's made an actual career out of his exact major. Idk why it didn't feel natural for Richie to be thinking about it so I just let he and Bill make conversation.. their jobs aren't going to matter much for the story other than schedules--most of it will be their life together when they're home or with their friends and family. Sorry, i constantly need to over-explain womp


	3. New Year's Eve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie and Richie host New Year's Eve in their house for the first time. Richie's feeling nostalgic. And old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is megasuperselfindulgence to the MAX. if you're here reading this sequel of a sequel of a very au tale, i'm guessing you're in for the ride with me and i appreciate that so much i don't even know how to tell you <333 
> 
> the storyline of sadie donating eggs is largely influenced by a storyline in the show six feet under. i did some research about the process and whatnot but like everything i write, i'm mostly just flying by the seat of my pants and don't know if everything is entirely realistic

~*+*~

 

The scene was a still shot from the Sears Christmas catalog on crack.

A lush rainbow-lit evergreen tree adorned with a mishmash of trinkets: antique bobbles; homemade garland strung with gradient yarn and wine corks; keepsake character ornaments ranging from Disney to Adult Swim. An instaflame log crackled and popped in the hearth, radiating warmth and flickering light onto four grown-ass adults who sat in a circle on the living room carpet, each dressed in differently colored buffalo plaid onesies and gripping fancy mugs full of cinnamon-sprinkled eggnog. The maternal figure, her silk ruby-red pajamas half hidden by the dog curled in her lap, surveyed it all from her reclined state in the corner lounger.

Peaceful. Homey. Kind of imperfectly perfect.

“This blows.”

Bev stirred her virgin nog so aggressively that the wooden party stick clinked around the rim of the crystal mug from Eddie and Richie’s fancy punch set. She looked elegant doing it, despite the firm clench of her jaw and the childish pajamas she had zipped over her frame. Her wavy auburn hair was longer than ever and swept back into a sleek ponytail, a product of her decision to reluctantly enter a superstitious pact with Richie the morning after Thanksgiving: no shaving, no haircuts. Not until they had a positive pregnancy test in their hands, for luck and chucks.

Her brow wrinkled prettily while she scowled her way through a small sip. “Getting shit-faced and New Year’s go together like…ketchup and mac and cheese.”

“Ew.” Eddie gagged without making a sound. “Those don’t go together at all.” He sipped from his own mug, filled to the brim with the aged bourbon-laced nog he’d been cultivating in the fridge since mid-December.  “And go easy on the crystal,” he scolded Bev lightly, “this was a wedding gift from Judy and Mae.” He tossed his messy, undone hair and his curls bounced, falling over to the left side of his head. Eddie wasn’t quite at Bev-and-Richie levels of unkempt, but he’d been forgoing shaving and blow drying since the beginning of winter break. He looked adorably disheveled and totally content—the preferred New Year’s Eve mood.

“Quit your whining, anyway.” Sadie grinned, teasing Bev. “I’m passing the sober torch to you.” She sniffed her own drink and winced. “Fuck, Eddie. I’m gonna get lit off of this shit.”

 _“Lit?”_   Richie laughed heartily. “More like you’re dead meat.” His little sister hadn’t taken a single drink since the day before Thanksgiving, and she was diving back into the land of booze boldly if she aimed to start with Eddie’s eggnog. “I’m gonna be scraping you up off the carpet later.”

“Aw, sweetie,” Eddie cooed, sticky sweet and entirely patronizing. He cupped Richie’s scruffy cheek and thumbed over his lips. “You’re confusing Sadie with yourself.” His doe eyes shimmered with flecks of blue and red, the chasing tree-light dancing on their glossy surface. He was halfway to lit himself. Rosy cheeks and bed-head.

Richie kissed his husband’s thumb and then nipped the pad of it. He was about to drag Eddie forward on the carpet to give him a real kiss when Sadie took a cheap shot at his throwback Wolfman look.

“Listen to your man, Lon Chaney.” She took a long gulp of the creamy liquid and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Tozier tolerance is legendary. You’re the one who’s a lightweight, which just helps prove my theory that you were adopted.”

Eddie let go of Richie’s face and giggled. His hand fluttered up between his eyes and he pressed on the bridge of his nose.  _“Sadie.”_

Biting the inside of his cheek to keep from snapping back, Richie fiddled with his glasses and allowed the ribbing to roll over himself.

Sadie had been a complete trooper through her month-long round of hormone shots. She ate like a bear: nothing but fresh fish and berries. Her tragically unathletic ass even took up jogging for maximum health points. Besides glowing skin, glossier hair and more sharply defined cheekbones, the prizes for her many sacrifices were half a dozen frozen reserves and three fertilized embryos, the latter of which were incubating and waiting for their chances to be implanted. Gifts that meant the absolute world to Richie and Eddie. So, if she wanted to roast her brother on a skewer and serve him up hot—familiar territory, especially on the last day of December—she had more than earned that privilege.

“Children, are we picking our choices, or what?” The queen of Tozier tolerance herself, Maggie eyed the four them from the recliner.

Richie smirked at the word  _children._ Sadie—the baby of the group—was about to turn twenty-eight. But the holiday always brought along with it a certain nostalgic charm, and they were all seated cross-legged in the wide space in front of the coffee table like they were about to play duck-duck-goose. Maybe the shoe still fit.

The Tozier family tradition had begun twenty-one years earlier, born from Maggie’s desire to be closer to her kids, her son specifically. The same spirit remained, but the ritual underwent some changes along the way. For one, the approved guest list had grown: everyone from their old high school clique had made an appearance one year or another. Bill had been invited to this year’s festivities but had to decline due to his own family obligations.

“Yeah, Mom. We’re picking.” Richie set his mug down. He reached over and tore a sheet of paper from the spiral bound notebook on the table. “And don’t all of you stuff the ballot box with  _Time Enough At Last_   as one of your picks,” he warned as he ripped the page into little pieces. “That shit stopped being funny seven years ago.”

Another update to the celebration—one that Richie both loved and hated—was that they no longer watched the  _Twilight Zone_   marathon on TV. Instead, everyone selected five of their favorite episodes and wrote them down on slips of paper. They chose out of a hat and watched the winning titles on Netflix, however many they could get through before people began sacking out for the night.

“It’s still funny.” Bev placed her nog down on the table and crawled forward to snatch her ballots out of Richie’s hand. “I’m writing  _Time Enough At Last_   on every single goddamned one of ‘em.”

“You kiss your baby with that mouth?” Richie asked the question without thinking. He regretted it immediately when Bev sat back with a thump and bit her lower lip.

She and Ben were both invited to come over that night, but Micah came down with a cold at the last minute. Her husband took initiative and canceled the sitter, shooing Bev out of the house with strict instructions to have fun for the both of them. He had told her that she deserved a last hurrah before the nine-month hormone and sobriety festival she was about to endure. He deserved it, too. It was going to be a lot for him, emotionally supporting a pregnant wife without the baby-reward at the end for all their troubles. But Benny was excited for his friends, proud of his wife, and just the sort of stand-up guy who would fully back her on any endeavor, no questions asked.

Eddie stuck out one leg and used his pointed toes to jab his husband in the side. “Don’t mom-guilt her, jerk.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Richie grabbed onto Eddie’s lazily attacking foot and held on, kneading the ball of it until Eddie’s eyes closed. “I swear.”

“It’s okay,” Bev said quietly. “I always feel guilty when I leave him. Knowing my boys, they’re probably both asleep by now, anyway.” She flashed a devious smile. “Next year you guys’ll see. You’ll be housebound for the first six months.”

“With the first one they will,” Maggie interjected. “Everyone is a wreck over the first one.”

Sadie pushed herself up off the floor. “Anyone would be a wreck if their first kid turned out to be Richie.”

_I was gonna play nice, but you’re beggin’ for it now._

“Kee-rect!” Richie set Eddie’s foot down. He stood up and glowered down at the face that looked so much like his own--though smaller and less pale, with an absence of glasses, because Sadie was brave enough to get lasik when Richie was not--for a few seconds, and then gave his sister the biggest, fakest grin he could force. “And anyone with half a brain would get sterilized if their second kid turned out like you,” he said smugly, making his husband groan from the floor.

Maggie rubbed a hand over her forehead and sighed. “Why do you both revert fifteen years on major holidays?”

Without breaking eye contact with his sister, Richie answered: “Because you make us wear onesies.”

Sadie grinned for real. She poked at Richie’s paunchy middle with a stiff finger. “No one’s  _making_   you wear it, and you know it.” Judging from the wild glimmer in her eyes, she would have preferred to turn the evening into a full-blown roast battle, but Sadie backed off, taking her nog and ballots with her to settle into the corner of couch.

Eddie and Bev took her lead and joined her, filling up all the available seats. They sat with their heads bent, scribbling their episode titles.

Saving both his mother and June from having to get up, Richie walked over to the armchair to give her a pen and a few scraps of the paper he had torn, approaching tentatively. When Mags spoke of reversion, she meant the intensity of Richie and Sadie’s adolescent-esque sibling rivalry, but to Richie it applied to something else. Something unexpected, and less benign.

Maggie was sore, and it wasn’t just due to her arthritis. She was metaphorically sore. A little bit miffed at everyone in the room, Richie knew, but she tried her best not to show it. The  _Tozier family tolerance_   that Sadie boasted of extended beyond alcohol. They were experts at bottling their emotions. The change in Maggie since Christmas day was subtle, like a chilly draft searching under a door into a warm room.

Richie didn’t hand the writing implements over to his mother right away. He hovered next to her chair, studying the swollen fingers of her right hand as they massaged underneath June’s chin. The old girl was curled on her back with her front paws hovering limply in the air and drooling, half-asleep and loving it.

“She misses you,” he said softly.

“Oh, I don’t know about all that.” Maggie tweaked at the bright red bandanna tied just below the dog’s festive Christmas collar. “She’s happier here, I think. I’m just glad she hasn’t forgotten me.” She lifted her head, cocking it while her eyes hunted around Richie’s face. “Has she been better on your allergies? You don’t seem congested.”

“Totally. Big improvement. It was pretty bad to start out, though.”

Awful was a more accurate description. For several days after they adopted June, Richie had woken up a sniffling, bleary-eyed mess who couldn’t go two minutes without making  _gluck-gluck_ bullfrog noises in the back of his throat—feeble attempts to clear out the unbearable itchiness, the sound of which drove Eddie up a wall, and not in a fun way.

Richie dragged himself out of bed every morning at dawn to walk the source of his misery anyway, though his schedule allowed him to sleep until noon if he wanted to. The time he spent sprinting when June darted forward to investigate a moving target was the most exercise he’d gotten in months. He wheezed through his congested head, regretting his rash decision to take her in, waiting for his husband to give him the old  _“I told you so,”_   routine, but it never came.

The symptoms got progressively better on their own. Over a few weeks, torture shifted to mild discomfort. Eddie said it made sense, that it was the principle of inoculation—how allergy shots were the injection of small particles of the allergen to build up a resistance over time. Richie was doing it to himself by letting June sleep in their bed at night and going without medication in the morning. Then Eddie upped the ante by appointing himself as June’s personal groomer.

“Eds found this hypoallergenic shampoo crap. He brushes her down and gives her a bath with it every weekend.”

Eddie had done more than just that. He diligently changed Richie’s pillowcase every morning. He covered all the beds and the couch in dog-approved sheets to keep them untainted by dander. He did scads of research to find the most advanced hepa-filter vacuum on the market.

_Always looking out for me, my Eds._

“I can tell.” Maggie stroked her ruddy hand down June’s chest. “She feels softer. Moisturized.”

Richie pointed at his mother’s knuckles with the pen. “Are your hands okay?”

He half expected her to snap at him. She didn’t like being fussed over. The moment she had stepped out of her car onto the driveway earlier that evening she’d sworn up and down that her hands were fine, that she was fine. Went had put some time and money into modifying the vehicle—push button turn-signals and a soft, thick steering wheel pad. The old man was thoughtful when it counted, but he still chose work over family on the last day of the year. New Year’s just wasn’t his sort of holiday. No feast to be had; too much romanticism.

Maggie's hand stopped moving and her lips parted in surprise. “Yes.”  She smiled with teeth showing while she let go of the dog and cupped her hands to receive Richie’s offering, but the smile didn’t crinkle her eyes. “They aren’t too bad today.” She reached for the reading glasses that sat next to the stemless wine glass on the table beside her.

Richie swallowed and watched her write out two of the slips. “How long are you planning to be mad?” he asked, blurting a loaded question before he thought better of it. He felt Eddie’s eyes hit back of his neck.

“I’m not mad, Richard,” Maggie replied without looking up from her ballots. “I wish you would stop saying that. How could I be angry about something so wonderful?”

They had broken the news over dessert on Christmas day, told all the parents that Sadie was to be their egg donor. Richie thought it was a good time, an added gift of information while everyone was pliant and sated and seated around the Tozier dining room table sipping their coffee and picking at apple pie. How could they go wrong?

Wentworth and Sonia responded as expected: they were ecstatic and skeptical, respectively. But Maggie’s eyes had swept around the room, landing on each of her kids, from Sadie to Eddie to Richie last, lingering on him the longest, the hurt written all over her face. She must have felt left out, though she never said it outright. It wasn’t in her nature.

When Richie was a teenager, the distance that existed between himself and his mother was a wide chasm. They both worked to reach a common ground in his early twenties, traversing the gap to meet each other the middle. Old resentments were let go, long-kept secrets shared and laughed off. He thought they had left all of that behind them for good. But even at two months shy of thirty-two, Mags had the power to make him feel as inadequate as he felt at seventeen. Her power rested not on what she said, but what she wouldn’t say.

_Can’t say._

The pen clicked. Maggie was finished. She deposited the folded papers into Richie’s hand. “You aren’t going to pick yours?”

Blinking, Richie collected himself. “Uh. Yeah. I am.” He backed away from his mother, nearly tripping backwards over the coffee table in the process.

“Jesus, be careful,” Eddie said. All three bodies on the couch had matching wide eyes, their hands held up protectively to brace themselves in case Richie fell on them.

Richie felt his ears heating up. “Sorry. Dat whiskey, tho.” 

 _What a spaz._   

He deposited his mother’s ballots into the overturned baseball cap on the table and pushed aside the tray of hors d'oeuvres to clear himself a writing space, then he spun around, settling himself down on the floor with his back against the couch, right in the center so he was in front of Eddie, whose fingers wound their way into his hair in a split second.

Eddie hooked his chin over Richie’s shoulder. “I don’t think Maggie’s  _mad,”_   he whispered so no one else could hear, his breath tingly and hot against the shell of Richie’s ear. “But whatever she  _is,_   she’s it at me, too.” He used his thumb to massage a circle at the nape of Richie’s neck, the touch firm and light at once, relieving the tension there. It was like the rest of the room fell away and it was just the two of them, desert island style. “Don’t let it get to you.”

“Thanks, baby,” Richie whispered back. He leaned back into Eddie’s warmth and relaxed, surrounded by the supportive home that was his husband. “I tried, at least. You heard.”

“Hmmn.” His thumb stopped moving and he wrapped a warm arm around Richie’s throat. “Are you really gonna cut your hair when we find out?” he asked, still whispering, “ ‘cause y’know how much I—”

“For sure.” Richie leaned forward a bit and began writing with Eddie still clinging to him like a koala. “I’m gonna shave it all off. Balder than a cue ball.”

Eddie huffed a sloppy  _pfft_ , sounding very much like the world’s cutest leaky balloon. “You would never.”

“Never say never.” Richie scribbled his last choice and folded the five ballots. “Okay.” He tossed them into the hat to join the rest. “We’re ready.”

He gave the hat a swirling mix and felt each of the feather-light slips swishing past his fingers. Checking each paper for an unnaturally heavy one was a habit for him now, though he knew that he wasn’t going to find one this time. Four years ago, on an unusually packed night in the Tozier living room (Mike and Stanley were in town, as well as Bev and Ben, plus Sadie and her flavor of the month: Sky, a friend turned more-than-friend with cocoa skin and a nose ring), Richie’s knuckle had knocked into something firm, harder than paper.

_“Okay, who thinks they’re funny?” Richie asked from his spot on the floor, immediately suspicious. He cased the smirks and smiles in the room. Wide smiles. Expectant smirks. They were spread all around, on the couch and the chairs. Judging by their faces, something funky was going on. He held up the neatly folded square of paper. “What the fuck is this, a scrabble tile?”_

_“It’s a nickel.” Bev was cheesing hard as fuck. “I gave you a tip.”_

_“You couldn’t have given him a quarter?” Ben asked his wife, lacing their fingers together. "Cheapskate."_

_“No, It’s a ball bearing,”  Sadie said flatly. “I wasted your bike chain.”_

_Sky brought her mouth to Sadie’s ear and whispered something. They both giggled, the sound a little too squealy for Richie’s liking._

_“Maybe it’s a wad of gum,” Mike offered with a shrug. Richie could tell he was feigning ignorance. The bastard knew something._

_“Yeah, it’s my Juicy Fruit,” Stan said, grinning and fluffing at his curls. “I thought maybe you’d want some.”_

_“The west coast has made you really gross, Stanley.” Richie set the square down on the coffee table and went back to mixing the rest of the slips. He heard Sadie chuckle from across the room._

_“Uh, maybe you should open that one first.” Eddie's voice was unsteady._

_Richie lifted his head. Everyone was still watching him intently. “I’m not pulling apart a gum paper, Eds.”_

_“Open it,” Maggie said simply, her expression veiled._

_His mother had been extra quiet all night. At first Richie thought she was bummed because she was the only one who wore her Christmas pajamas. Everyone else had on regular clothes or sweats. But he began to piece things together. She’d been bustling in the kitchen, keeping herself busy like she did when she was nervous about something. And now her phone was in her hand, held horizontally like she was going to start snapping candids. She never messed with her phone on holidays._ Live in the now _was her motto,_  experience each other; don’t save it for later.

_Something was very much amiss, and it seemed like everyone else was in on it._

_“Okay, fine. I’ll bite. But there better not be anything that was in Stan’s mouth inside this thing,” Richie joked, trying his best to sound casual. He was surprised by the way his hands shook as he placed the hat down on the table and picked up the scrap of paper._

_On closer inspection, it was too heavy to hold gum or a coin or a scrabble tile. As he unraveled it, he realized it was also too long and too neatly trimmed to be one of the slips that he’d handed out to everyone a few moments before, and it spiraled like a ribbon as it came loose. It had to have been wrapped for a while to mold into that shape._

_In the center of the paper Richie found a white gold ring with two tiny gemstone chips shaped like a yin yang symbol—aquamarine and ruby, his and Eddie’s birthstones. His eyes welled and spilled quicker than he thought possible, the tears choking his throat, rendering his vocal chords useless. The paper had a note on it, written in Eddie’s best handwriting:_ I’m asking you on a date for the rest of your life _—a lyric from the lovey-doviest song of one of Richie’s favorite teen angst bands._

_Romantic yet lowkey and done on a holiday: Eddie pulled the absolute trifecta of Richie-approved moves to propose. Richie loved it. Richie loved him. So completely that he didn’t trust himself to form words, not that he could. Stunned silence and happy tears. He twisted the paper and fingered the cool metal, unable to raise his wet eyes to the audience, which was suddenly too large. Never had he ever felt so self-conscious in his life, neither on stage nor with his family and friends._

_Eddie slipped down off the couch and crawled forward. He sat on his knees in front of Richie. “Now’s the part where you say something.” His voice was husky but teasing. He was crying, too._

_Richie felt everyone in the room watching him. He managed a look around and found that he and Eddie weren’t the only ones turned into bawl babies. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Ben and Mike were doing the old blink-really-fast-and-no-one-will-know move. Bev, Maggie and Sadie were all recording the moment with their phones and sniffling away unabashedly. Even though Sky didn’t really know anyone, she was all heart eyes with her head resting on Sadie’s shoulder. Stan the man had his cheek leaning on his hand, the ring finger covertly swiping under his left eye._

_Focusing on Eddie’s tear stained face, Richie inched a little closer. Close enough so it felt like they were alone. “I was gonna ask you,” he whispered and then swallowed the lump in his throat. “At midnight.”_

_“You were not,” Eddie said softly, smiling through his tears._

_"Yuh-huh.” Richie reached into the front pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a velvet box. He popped it open. Inside was a rose gold ring with Celtic knotted edges and an engraving on the inside: R + E. “I hope it fits; I bought one that fit on my pinky.”_

_Eddie gave him a watery laugh. He took the box and studied the ring. “It’s beautiful. I can’t believe you managed to keep this a secret. I had no idea.”_

_“Yup. And I even got fireworks.” While Richie preferred to be romanced subtly, his method for romancing veered towards highkey. Okay, extra. Really extra. “Benny was gonna blow them off for me from the neighbor’s yard right when I asked you.”_

_“The Johnson’s yard?!” Maggie dropped her phone into her lap. “Richard,” she scolded while dabbing at her eyes. “You can’t just go around—"_

_“Wait.” Eddie scrubbed the back of his thumb over his cheeks. He turned to look at Ben, bewildered. “You knew he was gonna— But you knew that_ I  _was gonna and you didn’t say—"_

_“Yeah,” Ben said uneasily, still blinking. “I knew both of you guys were—”_

_“Oh, we all knew both of you were proposing tonight,” Bev cut him off, impatient. She and Sadie were still recording. “Richie only told me and Ben what he was gonna do—really impressive self-control by the way—but Eddie told absolutely everyone, even Billy, who just texted me for an update. And I told Mike and Sadie that you both had almost the same plan because it was so fucking cute I couldn’t—”_

_“Can we… still set off the fireworks?” Mike asked, earning himself a jab in the side from Stan’s elbow._

_“Wait, what did the note say?” Sadie held her phone higher. “And we still don’t have an answer. Quit cockblocking, Rich, I only have three minutes’ worth of space left.”_

_“Yes, Richard, would you answer the boy?” Went’s amiable voice came from behind, by the bottom of the stairwell. Even the old man was able to tear himself away from his cave to witness the event of the century. “The suspense is killing us all.”_

_“Fuck, why did we invite the peanut gallery?” Richie chuckled and wiped hastily under the rims of his glasses. “Yeah,” he said, voice thick. He nodded vigorously and reached for his husband-to-be. “Yes, Eddie.”_

“Hey, are you gonna mix them all night, or?” Bev grinned from her spot in the right corner of the couch, catching Richie daydreaming, possibly reading his mind.

“You always pull. Let me do it this time.” Sadie grabbed the hat before Richie could get it together to protest. She shook it around and gave it her own mix.

“First one,” she said, unfolding a slip, “is…” Instead of an episode title, a delighted giggle came out of her mouth. “Okay,  _Captain Kirk being really gay and dramatic on an airplane._  Hmmn, I wonder who wrote that one,” she teased, reaching out a hand to tickle Eddie’s side.

He let go of Richie but stayed flush to him, reaching out to karate chop Sadie’s forearm. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re spot on, as always. Okay next:  _Printer’s Devil,”_ Sadie continued, not missing a beat,  _“_ I  _know_   who wrote this one. It was either Richie or a chicken holding a Pictionary pencil.”

“Get out of my house,” Richie deadpanned.

“Never. Nice:  _Living Doll; Nick of Time; I Sing the Body Electric._ ” She doubled over with laughter and held up one of the scraps, wheezing:  _“The one with the kid who controls everyone in town and he’s a jerk?_ Eddie, come on. How many years have we been doing this?”

 _“It’s a Good Life,”_   Richie said. He leaned his head back and kissed his husband on the cheek. “Ya friggin’ cutie.”

“Whatever, y’know what I mean.”

 _“The one where someone in the diner is an alien._   Really, Bev? You guys are killin’ me.”

“Solidarity Eddie.” Bev reached out a balled fist to bump his. “These nerds think it’s cool to know every single title of the fucking  _Twilight Zone.”_  

Sadie opened another slip and laughed again, harder this time. She leaned forward and dropped the paper like confetti from above Richie. It fluttered down into his lap.

He picked it up and read it, sighing so hard he almost started coughing. “ _Time Enough at Last._   What the fuck do ya know about that?”

Eddie giggled like mad. “Who wrote it?” He fell away from Richie to lean against the back of the couch and held up one hand innocently, like a boy scout. “W’sn’t me.”

“I know that handwriting,” Sadie said. “I perfected the forged signature when I was twelve.”

Richie furrowed his brow and shook his head. “You didn’t perfect shit; I taught you.”

Everyone looked over at Maggie, who was biting down on her smile, a genuine one this time. “I’m sorry, honey. It’s just not New Year’s without it, just like it’s not Christmas without  _Rudolph.”_

_Speaking of reversion. I’m not that kid who came crying to you anymore, Mags. But you’re still that mom who holds the wrong shit back._

“Yeah, well—” Richie stood up and headed towards the dining room, speaking over his shoulder ”—for me, it’s not New Year’s without me and Eds sleeping on an air mattress, but I’m surviving okay. I’m making cocoa. Bevvie, you wanna help me in the kitchen?” He walked out without waiting for her answer and went straight for the pantry, pulling out the industrial sized box that boasted  _double marshmallows_ on the side _._

“Make enough for three.” Bev entered the kitchen and leaned against the counter next to the stove. “Sadie wants one, too.”

“Eddie doesn’t?”

“He’s set on the nog. I predict that he’s gonna be completely gone in like thirty minutes.”

“Yup.” Richie opened the fridge and hunted for the milk. “Whiskey’ll do that,” he said shortly as his grip closed over the half gallon.

“What’s with you?”

“Nothing.” Richie thought it over as he crossed the kitchen floor. It wasn’t nothing, it was definitely something. What came out of his mouth next was half vent and half what he really needed to say to Mags herself: “I just wish she’d make up her fuckin’ mind. Does she want me to grow up or be a ten-year-old telling her every little thing and clinging to her skirt for the rest of my life, or what?  She’s just…frustrating.”

“Uh huh. Most parents are, I think.” Bev stooped to pull a small pot out of the hide-away drawer beneath the stove. She set it on the grate above the burner. “I know you don’t like the way she handled it when you told her about Sadie. Just— Keep it in mind when all this pans out and you’re doing your own thing.”

“Keep what in mind?”

Bev clucked her tongue and hugged her arms around her middle. She wore an impatient face that matched her defensive stance. “Try to remember that no one knows what they’re doing when it comes to their kids. We’re all just trying our best.” She let go of herself and picked at the loosely bunched fabric around her hips, mumbling: “And for some people  _the best they can do_ is still pretty bad.”

Richie realized that the impatience he felt flowing out of her was not meant for him, but for herself. He remembered a time when they were both younger and dumber and his best friend sang an entirely different song about parenting.

It had taken several years of Richie knowing Bev for her to open up to him. In high school he knew her surface-self: fun, flirty and bold. A bit of a rebel, though he wasn’t sure exactly what she had to rebel against. Her beauty was natural, her personality magnetic, her jokes tended to land on the mark. People flocked to her, but she lacked a certain something that Richie himself struggled with: easily accessed outward vulnerability. They were similar in that way, using their wit to distract from deeper matters.

The subject of her parents hadn’t come up until one sticky summer day after sophomore year of college, during a smoke-n-bullshit session in the old treehouse in Bill’s backyard. Richie didn’t remember how they got onto the topic of junior high, but their conversations usually took on a life of their own, fueled by weed and sugar highs and their comfortable one-on-one company. Bev had smiled a grown-up smile full of both longing and relief. Her dad was a piece of work, she’d said, he blamed her for things that couldn’t have possibly been her fault, went upside her head when he was drunk. He might have done more than just that, if given the chance, but they took her away and gave her aunt full custody when she was in seventh grade.

 _“And for some people_ the best they can do  is _still pretty bad.”_

Richie didn’t comment on her advice. He poured half the bottle of milk into the pot, watching it pool and bubble in the center, repeating Beverly’s words over in his mind as he clicked on the burner. His eyes went unfocused and he saw his best friend younger. She had shorter hair and a slimmer face. More cynical that she was in high school, less hopeful than she was now.

 

 _“I’m never having kids,” Beverly said firmly. Her slim, freckled arm hung out the living room window of Richie and Eddie’s fourth floor apartment, a steaming cigarette stuck between her fingers. She leaned her head out and lifted the hand-rolled stick to her lips to take a long drag._  

_Richie kept a protective finger over the nosepiece of his glasses, so they wouldn’t clatter and smash on the sidewalk below. He inhaled from his own cigarette. “You can’t know that for sure yet,” he said through his exhale. He glanced over his shoulder at the front door, paranoid that Eddie was going to come back quicker than expected from picking up their take-out. They were under orders to go down to the curb to smoke. If he caught them in the act they were toast._

_“Rich, I do know that.” She flicked the rest of her filterless butt out the window and watched its fiery descent. “This world is totally fucked. Fur babies only.”_  

 _It was becoming an irregularly regular thing in their lives: Bev popping in unannounced right at dinner-time. She’d taken the Path from the city to Hoboken and arrived in her new normal state of drained disillusionment. Her job as a personal shopper wasn’t as glamorous as she had hoped it would be as a wide-eyed graduate. Disgustingly rich people with incredibly haughty attitudes snapping their fingers and wrinkling their noses at designer prices. It was less_ high-fashion _and more_ lowered-expectations for human decency. _Her days usually left her scattered. Fed up with life._

_But Beverly deciding at twenty-four that she aimed to die a cat lady was a new one on Richie._

_“Oof, I guess work today was more gruesome than usual, huh, doll?”_  

 _“It’s not about that, for once. It’s— My parents were—” Shaking her head, Bev must have abandoned that train of thought. She came all the way inside the window, turned around and slid down to the floor with her back against the wall beneath the windowsill. “It’s really easy to fuck a kid up, Richie.”_  

Oh, this runs deeper than shitty customers, _Richie thought. But he couldn’t stop his mouth. “Yeah, with_ that _attitude, it is,” he said disapprovingly._  

 _Bev gave him a cool death stare, but then she snorted and they both busted up laughing. “I would give you the only titty twister, but I’m too tired.” She stretched her legs out in front of herself and all of her appendages went limp as a ragdoll. “I just think it’s a terrible idea for anyone to spawn.”_  

_“In this economy,” Richie finished for her before frantically leaning his whole body to the right in case she made good on the promise to maim him._

_But she just sighed and said: “The NASDAQ,” droning a passible Charlie Kelly impression._  

 _Richie smiled and inhaled a facefull of the sharp, late spring air. The cynicism that the working world had beaten into Bev could have been contagious, but he felt entirely hopeful that evening. “Eddie said he definitely wants to have one. A kid.”_  

 _“Good luck with that.” Bev picked at her peeling nail polish. “Upfront: Aunt Bev is not available as a babysitter until they hit junior high.”_  

 _“Positively hilarious,” Richie deadpanned. “I mean it. We’re gonna adopt or get a surrogate or some shit. Some day.”_  

 _“Why does he even want to?”_  

 _“I think he wants to give a kid the kind of childhood he couldn’t have.” Richie took his last puff and chucked his butt out to marry Bev’s on the ground below. He sat down next to her and rested his elbows on his knees. “And I want him to have that. More than anything.”_  

 _“Wow, you’re actually being serious.” Bev smiled down at her calico skirt. “That’s the sweetest shit I ever heard.”_  

 _“Yeah. I’m whipped as a motherfucker.”_  

 _“Does that mean you don’t want to have a kid?”_  

 _“No. Maybe. I dunno if I really do yet.” Richie scratched at the top of his head.  “Like, I don’t even know if I really want pad Thai for dinner, but he already left to pick it up, y’know?”_  

_“Where are your mugs again?”_

“Huh?” Richie blinked at Beverly, her pony-tailed silhouette framed by the black and white backdrop of his and Eddie’s kitchen. She was six years older than in the memory that had just swept him up, but still a knockout. Her face and hips had gotten softer: a product of the child she swore up and down that she would never have. Whatever age she found herself, seventeen or barely twenty-five or the big three-O, it suited her. “Mugs?”

“Ceramic drinking vessels for hot beverages? Rich, are you okay?” She smirked and came a little closer, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Did you smoke pot and not tell me?”

“I haven’t smoked anything at all for five years, looney toon. Mugs are in the top-top shelf over the toaster. Eddie moved the whole kitchen around last weekend.” Richie took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I just got stuck in my head for a second. Trippy.”

“Terrifying place to be,” Eddie quipped from the doorway behind him. “Hurry up with the cocoa, okay? Maggie wants to start the marathon.”

 

~*+*~

 

Four episodes in, Sadie was already a goner. She had laid down on the living room floor with a throw pillow (swearing up and down that she wasn’t going to fall asleep) and promptly passed out, attracting June’s company to her side like a fly to honey. Beverly was also conked but had gone quietly. She stretched herself out over the right half of the couch and claimed Richie’s thigh as a place to rest her head without asking permission. Judging by the angle at which her neck was bent, she would eventually regret it.

“I think we’re all getting too old for this.” As if to illustrate his point, Eddie yawned against the back of his hand and sunk a little deeper into Richie’s left side. He’d downed three egg nogs and they had only served to make him sleepy.

“Not you, too,” Richie whispered. He ducked his head and nosed up the pink apple of Eddie’s cheek. “It’s only eleven thirty. And I’m not in good enough shape to carry everyone to bed.”

On the television, Rod Sterling’s monologue stopped short and his black and white complexion froze. Maggie cleared her throat from the other side of the room. “Richie, before it gets too late, can you help me get something from my trunk?”

_Great a fuckin’ case of La Croix we won’t drink._

“I live to serve,” he muttered.

June raised an ear but didn’t budge when Maggie got up from the arm chair and went over to the coat closet

Richie gestured helplessly to the sleeping beauty draped in his lap. “Eds, could you—”

Eddie was already reaching behind himself to grab a pillow. He helped lift Beverly’s head and transition it, so Richie could stand up without jostling her awake.

“Don’t fall asleep while I’m gone.” Richie bent over Eddie and kissed his forehead. “We gotta go out soon.”

Their personal tradition of ringing in the new year solo surrounded by fresh air had never been skipped, not even five years prior (the only year on record that they hadn’t spent the holiday with Richie’s family) when Eddie came down with walking pneumonia and was too sick for them to drive all the way back to Maine.

“If I do just wake me up,” Eddie whispered, “you know it’s important to me.” and Richie heard his voice echoing the same sentiments, raspier and filled with fluid.

_”Lovebug, I really want to.” Eddie hardly ever used pet names other than_ baby _and the occasional_ sweetheart _, so he was really laying it on thick. He was bundled under a sherpa blanket, stretched out long on the couch with his hot feet in Richie’s lap. His eyes were still watery from the coughing fit he had just recovered from, but his ruined voice held firm. “Don’t you know how important this is to me by now?”_

_Eddie had been cooped up indoors and living in pajamas for a solid four days. The doctor had said there was nothing to be done but to let the virus run its course. Positively no cough suppressants. A humidifier running at all times. Tylenol. Fluids. Rest. Besides the hacking cough and lingering fever, the widespread weakness took the largest toll on his body and spirit. But it was obvious he wasn’t going to take no for an answer this time._

_Richie tried to dissuade him anyway. “It’s too cold out, sweet pea.”_

_Eddie’s brow furrowed like he wanted to get lippy, but he went with a softly sardonic approach instead. “Y’know, there are these really neat inventions called coats and hats. We both happen to own several options.”_

_“No shit, mon petit funny-guy. But a jacket doesn’t stop you from breathing freezing air into your lungs. Doc what’s-his-face said you should be breathing warm, humidified air.” Richie felt like a broken record. He had already said this shit four hundred times. “Shoot me for not wanting you to get worse. It’s dry and cold and shitty out there. The delivery guy had on a ski mask. A fuckin’_ ski mask, _Eds.”_

_“Richie, I’m going outside,” Eddie said, stubbornly declaring it, but he made no move to get up. “You can’t stop me.”_

_Sighing, Richie squeezed his boyfriend’s big toe. “If I just refuse to go with you, you’re gonna feel real silly standing outside on the curb all alone.”_

_“Don’t you need to have a cigarette, though? It’s been like two hours since you went out.”_

_“Nope. I’m quitting.” Richie gently removed Eddie’s feet from his lap and set them down on the couch. He grabbed his half empty pack of smokes off the coffee table and marched to the trash can in the kitchen, chucking them right into the center of the gloppy remnants of their dinner of Chinese take-out. A rash decision. He didn’t have any patches or lollipops or gum in the apartment to fall back on._

Fuck it. ‘Tis the season, _Richie thought. “My first ever New Year’s resolution.” He came back into the living room, slapping and laving his hands together dramatically like he’d just washed them clean of all his sins. “You heard it here, Germy McSickie. Alert the media. I’m goin’ goody two shoes.”_

_Eddie struggled to sit all the way up. “Wait, you’re serious?”_

_“Deadly. We’re both probably gonna really regret it in like three hours when I’m a whiny piece of shit about the withdrawal.”_

_“I won’t regret it.” Eddie’s unnaturally red face lit up with a tired smile. “Baby, that’s the best news I ever heard. So good.”_

_Richie brushed off the praise. “Yeah-yeah, gimme a cookie over it.” It was a long time coming. Something he should have done years ago. And if his sacrifice kept Eddie inside and warm, it would all be worth it in the end. “So there, we don’t have any reason to go outside now.”_

_“No, we do. It’s still important to me, whether or not you_ need _to go out.” Eddie peeled the blanket off himself and made it official. He wobbled only slightly as he made his way to the overstuffed coat rack in the corner of their small living room and set himself to layering Richie’s largest pullover hoodie on top of his pajamas, followed by his own hip length down coat. “No backsies on the quit, either.”_

You little shit, _Richie thought_. _And then he gave in._

 _“Fine, you win. What the fuck else is new?” He joined Eddie at the rack and slipped on his battered leather jacket. “Five minutes. And I’m wrapping you up like that kid from_ A Christmas Story.”

_Eddie took Richie’s hand and lifted it to his mouth to plant a soft kiss on the back of it. “I love you.”_

“Richard, are you coming?” Maggie hissed impatiently from the foyer.

“Keep your silk pants on, lady,” Richie said, low enough that only Eddie heard, and the smaller man smiled up at him. A sleepy, searching smile that made Richie want to gather him up and whisk him away for the rest of the night. The flush on the apples of Eddie’s cheeks was healthy, unlike the crimson fever blush that had bloomed there the night Richie went cold turkey.

_Remember when I quit smoking to try to keep your stubborn, sickly ass from going out into the cold and we went anyway? Cute little jerk._

Richie cupped Eddie’s warm face and kissed him again, on both cheeks and his forehead. When Eddie tried to capture his lips in a real kiss, he pulled his face away, eliciting a tiny discontented hum from his husband. “Cute.”

“You don’t wanna kiss me,” Eddie whispered, eyes trailing down to Bev, making sure he didn’t wake her. “Does my breath smell like eggnog?”

“No. I just wanna save it for midnight. Be right back.”

 

Between the steam heat and the fireplace, it was like a tropical paradise inside their house. As soon as Richie stepped beyond the doorstep, the frigid air that swirled up the driveway went right through him. What good was a slowly accumulating layer of abdominal fat if it didn’t even give him insolation?

Forgoing a coat was a mistake, but at least he had the good sense to jam his shoes on before he went outside. He struggled to keep himself from shuddering, hunching his shoulders up to his ears as he trudged behind his mother to the very end of the driveway where her car sat out in bumfuck Egypt.

Maggie tucked her open coat tighter around her front and shivered. She pressed the button on her key chain. The trunk popped up and bobbed back down. “Open it.”

“What is it g-gonna explode in my face like a can of sn-snakes?” Richie hugged himself and waited for his mother to scold him for not wearing a coat.

She didn’t, but she did scoff. “Yep, you’ve got my number. I brought you out here to play a trick on you.”

“Well as l-long as you’re be-ing honest.”

Richie lifted the trunk like she bade him. Inside, among his mother’s scattered mismatched roadside tools and way more emergency umbrellas than anyone needed sat a familiar grey cube swaddled in jersey cotton. The ancient air mattress that lived in the closet of his old bedroom. The worst drawback to hosting the festivities at their house had been the prospect of saying goodbye to arguably their silliest tradition: sleeping (hooking up) on a leaky rubber bed that was too short to hold Richie’s entire length.

He had never told his mother outright that the stupid mattress mattered to him. “You brought it,” he whispered, surprised by the thickness in his voice and the prickles behind his eyes. His glasses started fogging over. He was still shivering but it wasn’t from the weather anymore.

“Well, when you two preferred sleeping on it to my guest bed at Christmas, I made a mental note to give it a new home. We never use it.” Maggie’s hand met the small of his back. “Richie, you’re shaking; why didn’t you put on a coat?”

Richie didn’t answer. He turned abruptly and pulled his mother into a hug, laying his head onto her shoulder. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you from the beginning about—” his voice caught, cracking on the last word. He stared down at the crystalized frost forming on the asphalt around their feet and the image went smeary. “I didn’t think you would— I should have—”

“Shhhh, you don’t have anything to be sorry about, baby.” Maggie ran her hands up and down his arms, either to warm him or to calm the tears he fought back or both, in defiance of the ache the movement probably cost her knuckle joints. However closed off his mother could be sometimes, she still had an uncanny knack for making him feel small and loved at just the right moment. “ _I’m_   sorry. I just wished I’d known the news longer, and I didn’t know how to properly— I’m proud of your sister, and of you and Eddie for taking this leap of faith. I can’t wait to meet my grandchild.”

Richie sniffled and pushed a hand up under his glasses to wipe his eyes. “I don’t know why kids love Christmas so much. New Year’s Eve is concentrated magic.” He pulled hastily out of the embrace and grabbed the air mattress out of the trunk like nothing had happened, hugging the cube to his front. “Thanks.”

Maggie nodded. She shut the trunk and tipped her head towards the house. “Let’s go back before Eddie falls asleep, too. And you need to thaw out a little before you two go in the yard.” 

They walked back up the driveway side-by-side.

 

~*+*~

 

It might have gotten old, doing the exact same thing at the exact same time on the exact same date, but to Richie the moments themselves rested on their own plane of existence. He and Eddie, standing close together in crisp winter air, bidding a fond farewell to one year and welcoming a new one, sharing nostalgia-and-alcohol-fueled heart-to-hearts. Most of the firsts and lasts that made up their lives were rooted in those moments and on that date, regardless if the location changed. Some of the most important anniversaries in their history, all filed neatly onto one calendar square.

Almost a dozen years ago, on an unseasonably warm night under a sky full of snow-swelled clouds they ended a much-needed separation and began again. A different kind of love, more ferocious than the first. Self-aware. Grateful. Patient.

It was their first time doing the ritual in  _their_   yard, while  _their_   dog paced the perimeter and squatted at odd intervals to mark her territory.

June sniffed for the wild brown bunnies that Eddie insisted had dug a burrow underneath the shed. When that search proved fruitless, she smartly asked to go back inside the house. It was set to be one of the coldest winters on record; the biting, bitter sort of cold that burned exposed skin almost as bad as boiling water. The dog gave them a backwards glance as she retreated through the back door into the kitchen as if to say:  _“Wow, you guys are pretty stupid, huh? Don’t yanno they got a fireplace in here?”_

Both of them had bundled up like they were going on an expedition in the Yukon, but Eddie’s lower jaw tremored away despite the scarf wrapped snugly around his throat.

 “You cold, sweet pea?” Richie wrapped both arms around him from behind and pulled him close.

“A little bit.” Eddie leaned back into Richie’s chest, looking at him upside down with one eyebrow cocked. “You haven’t called me that in so long.”

“I’m bringing it back. Been thinking about old times all night.”

He heard the grin in Eddie’s voice. “Were you hunting for a phantom ring inside the hat?”

“No,” he lied. “I was just thinkin’…. Remember when we still lived in Jersey and Bev used to show up all  _fuck the world_   and  _down with breeders_?”

Eddie giggled like a piccolo, the sound echoing across the surrounding backyards. “Yeah, and now she’s a mom. Crazy.”

“Bonkers.”

“We’re all grown up.”

“Mmn-hmmn. Mostly.”

“They mostly come at night,” Eddie responded quickly in a soft falsetto, quoting  _Aliens,_   one of his favorite jokes, which Richie had set up deliberately.

Richie brought his mouth to Eddie’s ear and completed the quote, lisping: “Mostly,” drawn out and breathy against his lobe, making him shiver and push back against Richie’s chest. They were both quiet for a minute. “I call dibs on Pop.”

“What do you mean?”

“Papa, Poppy, whatever-the-fuck. That’s me.”

“So then I’m Dad by default?” Eddie shifted in Richie’s arms. Richie didn’t need to see his face to know how huffy it looked. “You just want to be the special one.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I want to save us the irritation of both whipping our heads around in a crowded place when we hear  _‘Dad?!’_  ”

“I guess. Oh, yeah. You have to start getting flu shots. For real.”

“But I hate needles, Eds.”

“Not enough to deter you from getting a tattoo. Twice. You have to get the pertussis vaccine, too.”

“What the fuck’s a pertussis?”

“The virus that causes whooping cough. Unvaccinated adults can be asymptomatic carriers.”

Richie chuckled and squeezed Eddie tighter. “This conversation has taken a really sexy turn.”

Eddie sniffed, shrugging as much as he could with Richie wrapped around him. “Preventative medicine gives me a semi.”

“You little freak; I was kidding.”

“No shit, Sherlock. Me too.”

“Do you think it’s gonna happen?” Richie didn’t have to elaborate. He knew Eddie understood the question.

In four days they would accompany Bev to the obstetrician where she would be implanted with three embryos. There was a slight chance they would eventually end up with three babies, but there was also a more likely chance that they would end up with no babies. One baby was the preferred option, and the odds on that were nothing to write home about.

“I’m optimistic.” Eddie sighed, deep enough that Richie felt his ribs expand. “If it doesn’t work out, we can always adopt.”

“Yep. Even if it  _does_   work out, we can adopt. The second kid.”

“You’re already planning for more?”

“Technically after next Wednesday, we should be prepared for  _three.”_

“God, can you imagine? What the fuck will we do if we have three at once?”

Richie hung his chin deeper over Eddie’s shoulder and slowly swayed him to and fro. “We’ll name them Huey, Dewey and Louie, regardless of gender. Buy three of everything. Never sleep again. In that order.”

A pop and crackle in the distance made both of them jump. Eddie laughed and wiggled himself to turn around without leaving Richie’s arms. “Happy New Year.” He stretched up onto his toes to bring their lips together. Both of their noses were running from the cold, but Richie didn’t care. They shared a sloppy, nog-flavored end of the world sort of kiss that left him melty soft inside, rock hard outside, and panting steam into the air.

Equally breathless, Eddie slipped a gloved hand up and straightened Richie’s steamy glasses for him. “Let’s go back. I feel bad leaving Maggie alone.”

“Yeah, the party-pooper brigade has really been shit for company this year, huh?”

“Richie, they’ve done so much for us, don’t—” 

Richie shut him up with another kiss, slower and without tongue. When he pulled back he traced a half-frozen finger along the patchy stubble of Eddie’s jawline. “Tell ya’ what. I’ll sit still and watch all of  _Time Enough at Last_   for Mags.”

With a little pout, Eddie asked: “Just for her?”

Rolling his eyes, Richie backed up a step. “And for you, too. If I was you, I’d take that as the generous gift it is.”

Eddie grinned impishly and curled his fingers into the fabric of Richie’s coat, pulling him forward. “Do I get to make fun of you?”

“Free pass.”

“Score,” Eddie whispered as he pushed up for another kiss.

 

 

~*+*~

 

It was stifling in the living room. So hot that they didn’t need blankets.

“Y’think… Maggie’ll be ‘kay… in our bed?” Eddie asked the question between the strategic wet kisses he was planting on Richie’s throat. The air mattress was set up beside the fire place and the glow from the dwindling flames lit him up from behind like an angel, juxtaposed neatly by the way he devilishly nipped too hard on Richie’s collar bone.

“Yeah… why… mmmn shit that hurts. Why wouldn’t she be?”

“I ‘unno. Our mattress’s… old’n lumpy. Her hip might—”

“Eds, I recognize the irony in me saying this, but can you stop talking about my mom’s hips while you’re chewing on me? It’s weird.”

Eddie lifted his head and gave it an indignant little shake. He was close to sleepy-sloppy after a couple glasses of prosecco on top of his eggnog—in a word: adorable. “Hypocrite.”

“Biggest on the planet.” Richie put his hands on Eddie’s face and guided him back down for a real kiss.

They were both too tired and tipsy to do anything elaborate, and Richie liked that. It had been a while since they had a moment like this. Laying front to front, kissing and tugging on each other through their pajamas with no goals besides being close together. It felt exploratory, like they hadn’t been all up and down every inch of the other a thousand times over.

But they had been. Richie remembered lazy weekday afternoons on his bed in his old bedroom, Jets to Brazil playing softly in the background, Eddie kissing him like this for hours. Eddie, shy and unsure but pushing past that, pulling off Richie’s shirt, grazing tentative fingers over his nipples and behind his back, leaving irregularly shaped hickies all over him. Richie’s dick would get so hard sometimes that he thought it might break off and shatter like a shirt sprayed with liquid nitrogen. Eddie had to have felt the same way, but he would stop them when it got to be too much, apologize with pink cheeks. Bitten up lips and mournful eyes.

All Richie’s pre-Eddie relationships were with people more experienced than himself. They expected him to just know what to do, and though he had no idea, he faked it until he made it. So when he had Eddie right in front of himself, pure as the driven snow and wanting but repressed, he didn’t pressure or badger or complain. Sex wasn’t everything. Eddie set their pace. And then one day he was ready. He bloomed. Some of Richie’s best memories were of the two of them laid in the same position they were now, stroking each other, giggling between kisses, each trying to get the other to nut first.

Richie figured they weren’t collectively up (pun intended) for a competitive mutual tug session that evening. While they were filling up the air bed, Eddie had muttered something about whiskey-dick and Richie couldn’t tell if it was a declaration or a question.

Eddie was soft and inviting. He sucked on Richie’s lower lip and pushed his knee forward, splitting Richie’s legs apart until his own leg rested between them. “This’s almost like when we first started going out,” he whispered before nibbling along Richie’s jawline to his ear.

“I was just thinking that,” Richie hummed. “Kinda.” He turned his head and nuzzled against Eddie’s mouth. “If it was like the beginning-beginning, you would have pushed me away by now.” Hot breath puffed into his ear when Eddie laughed, and Richie experienced his favorite sound as a series of chills down his spine.

“My only hobbies back then were willin' away boners'n trying to blend into the scenery.” He smoothed a hand over Richie’s forehead and raked it back through his hair. His voice went fond and dreamy. “You w’re the first person I e’er met that made it hard to do.”

“The boners or the blending?”

“Both.”

Richie rolled over onto his back and the rubber bed beneath them squeaked a protest that matched the way his body felt. The prosecco Mags had poured for him after they came in from the cold sloshed in his stomach, and his biceps trembled despite their inactive state, the muscles left weak from dragging the sack-of-potatoes dead weight of Beverly and then Sadie to the downstairs guest bedroom. He was altogether spent. Exhausted. Thinking about high school and uninvited boners just reminded him how old he really was. Tubby and softer everywhere. Slowed down. He made a noise that was half-groan, half-sigh.

Eddie sat up a bit and leaned his head on his hand. “Y’okay?”

“Yeah. Just tired.” Richie tilted his hips up and pushed his lackluster bulge higher. “And I’m at half-mast and I think it’s the best I can do right now.” He dropped back, wobbling the mattress.

_Whiskey dick. I-ate-fourty-three-zillion-pigs-in-a-blanket dick. We-aren’t-kids-anymore-no-matter-how-much-it-can-feel-like-it-sometimes-Eds dick._

“W’ll I am, too.” Eddie placed a hand on Richie’s chest and rubbed in a slow circle. “How come you are? Y’re not even drunk.”

“Yeah, but I had an obscene number of mini-meat balls.” He took Eddie’s hand and brought it lower, slapping it on his stomach a few times. “I can practically feel my arteries clogging as we speak. Has to impede blood flow, no? Fat and tired and old.”

“Lovebug, y’re not—” Eddie took his hand back. “Y’know, when people that are younger than you say that they’re old, it kinda feels like shit.”

“Baby, you’re older than me but you take better care of yourself. You never smoked. You don’t overeat. You didn’t get piss-ass drunk every three days in college. You haven’t gotten sunburned to the point of blisters as many times as I have. I mean, I probably already have early-stage melanoma forming somewhere on my back.”

“Wai-wai-wait, where is all this coming from?”

A good question. It seemed like it came out of nowhere, but it also seemed like it had been a crawling train of self-deprecation headed towards him, arriving right on schedule to barrel through him. It came from the day and the date. It came from a loving look back at their past as much as it came from the reality of his present. It came from all the subtle ways that Eddie had changed for the better and the not-so-subtle ways that Richie had changed for the worse. “I dunno,” was all he said. “Am I being a bummer?”

Eddie lifted his hand, held it flat and tilted it side to side. “Lil bit. But that’s okay.” He laid down on his back and patted his chest. “Come.”

Richie took the invite gratefully. He shifted down a bit to lay his head on Eddie’s chest. His feet dangled off the end of the mattress, but he didn’t mind. Eddie’s arm wrapped around him.

“You’re not fat.” Eddie’s voice was sleepy but clearer, like he’d been sobered up by Richie’s list of the terrible life choices that made him more haggard than his chronological age.” And you’re not old either.”  His hand stroked rhythmically: from the middle of Richie’s back, up over his ribs to his shoulder and back down. “Anyway, I’d rather you be chubby than smoke.”

“I know. Five years today. Five years and thirty pounds.” Richie yawned wide. Eddie’s touch lulled him. He snuggled his face deeper into the soft fabric of his husband’s pajamas and fell asleep counting heartbeats.

 

~*+*~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! feel free to talk to me! i'm @speakslowtellmelove on tumblr


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